I was pretty excited when I realized that work puts on a big event for bringing your children to work day - or Bringing the Future to Work Day as they call it. Thomas was in a half-day camp in the afternoon, so it was perfect to hang out with us at work in the morning! Henry was in a full-day science camp, so we decided to not pull him out and miss the robotics fun. (Plus it sounds like it is an annual event!)
I decided to sleep in a little and just bring Thomas is with me. Plus I saw that the cafeteria was serving kid-friendly breakfasts, so we definitely took advantage of that!
We had signed up in advance, so he had his name tag ready to go when we were walking in the door. He thought he could swipe his badge at the security gates, but I told him that it wasn’t a real badge and wouldn’t work. But I wasn’t thinking about how awesome the security ladies are at work - they opened it as soon as they saw him trying to swipe it. He was soooo proud of his badge after that. ;)
In addition to the outside groups (the zoo, the fire fighters, etc) that came for the event, almost all of the employee networks had booths for the kids. The Patriot Employee Network had cards for the kids to write thank-you cards to send to people in the military. So awesome!
One of the engineering groups had a “fishing” exercise to try and get a “fish” out of a piece of drill pipe. Thomas was one of the first kids to try it out and he got a real-deal hard hat for his success!
Fishing in drilling terms is when you get something something stuck in the hole - ie: drill pipe, wireline tools, bits, junk metal. It doesn’t matter what it is, once it is stuck and you are fishing for it - it is called a fish. In this example they used a binder clip and a hook, but the real options are actually much cooler!
I think his favorite part was all of the stations they had set-up at the company gym. He couldn’t quite figure out how to use the foam roller, but honestly I struggle with them as well. Hopefully my facial expression isn’t quite that comical… ;)
I did at least have enough skills to show him how to do pull-ups on the straps. He was pretty proud of how strong he was. :)
We met up with Matt finally and he asked what else there was that we hadn’t done. We just missed the fire truck, but the flight simulators were still up and running. So Thomas attempted a simulated landing at IAH airport. He tried his best, but I don’t think he will be flying big jets anytime soon… ;)
Overall, it was a great morning having fun with the eldest and getting to show him a little bit of what we do at work. Can’t wait to be able to show both of the boys next year!