Today was a special treat for Mom and the girls--Bring Your Child to Work Day!
For the last few days the kids have had the habit of waking us up at the crack of dawn, but of course today they chose to sleep in, and we had to rouse their sleepy heads at 6:10 in order to get to work on time. As soon as Mom reminded them about Work Day though, they bounced right out of bed with excitement.
We all had breakfast....
....and did our morning primping....
...then kissed Mama goodbye and got buckled in. Sometimes when you're up so early you need a buddy to ride with you--so Snowflake and Love Dog came along for the ride too.
Here we are at Mom's office....
...where the kids were quite happy to see their artwork proudly displayed on her door.
There were lots of other kids at the office too, including three-year-old Levi, who greeted us with donut holes as soon as we came in. Thanks Levi!
At 7:30 we did our morning stretches....
...then Mom answered emails while the girls settled in to "work".
Boredom quickly set in, but luckily Mom had some new color books and crayons, which proved to be a nice distraction.
At 8:30 we headed up to the corporate office, where all the kids and their parents were gathering. Each kid got a bag with a t-shirt, hard hat (with their name on it!), safety glasses, gloves, ear plugs, and a name tag...pretty cool!
Emily and Kate loved the gear, even though it was just a little bit too big for them. It's probably pretty hard to find real child-size safety equipment.
Once everyone was suited up, we posed for a photo. Mom could tell the girls were very proud to be at work with her.
When all the kids were ready, the whole group was welcomed with a nice speech by one of the company executives....
...and then we all did stretches....
....and headed out for our tour. There were almost 80 kids in attendance, so the large group was split up into three smaller ones, to make it a little easier on the tour guides.
Our tour started at the corporate headquarters (exciting!).
We started at the third floor "museum", which has a few artifacts from the old days, along with a big portrait of the company's founders and a model of a floating crane barge. The company was founded 63 years ago, so there are definitely some interesting things to look at.
The kids even got to ring the company bell, which is usually just reserved for special occasions, like winning a big job.
We then proceeded to tour the rest of the corporate office, which was (frankly) pretty boring.
The kids quickly lost interest in the purchasing, estimating, and HR departments (and who can blame them?).
Although they perked up when we got to walk through the IT department, including the server room.
Throughout the tour, Emily listened and asked questions. She really got into it, unlike Kate who was mostly hungry (and perhaps a little too young for this kind of thing).
After corporate, we climbed on board a school bus....
...which took us to our next destination....
...the equipment department! This tour was much more interesting, as the kids could see people actually doing things.
We checked out out the entire small tool rental and repair area, including the machine shop....
...and (briefly) took a look at the equipment in the yard. Mom was hoping for a walk around the cranes, but instead it was time to get back on the bus....
...and head over to the third leg of the tour--the Fabrication Shop. Here we got to see lots of welding, grinding, overhead cranes, and even a plasma cutter (sweet!).
The fab shop is kind of loud, so the kids had to put their ear plugs in. Mom wasn't sure if they would tolerate the foam in their ears, but they kind of liked wearing them, and it definitely helped with the noise.
We also toured the paint shop....
...and the handrail fabrication tent, where we watched the guys work the hydraulic pipe bender. Emily and Mom were enthralled....
...but Kate not so much.
Finally the tour was over, and we headed back to Mom's office for a quick pit stop.
The kids had some water, cooled off a little bit...
....Emily attempted a quick catnap (she was worn out from asking all those questions)....
...while Kate finally got her snack.
The girls took a quick moment to admire the bulletin board in the copy room, and pick out their own photos....
...and then we headed back over to corporate to finish up the event. There were some exercises, led by the company wellness manager (the lady with her hands on her rear in the photo below)....
...and a group photo (look at all those kids!)....
...then we finished up with a nice lunch in the corporate lunchroom.
By the time Mama came to pick up the girls, they were exhausted from their big morning at work with Mom. In fact, Emily fell asleep almost immediately after this photo was taken.
Bring Your Child to Work Day was a big hit with our family, and we sure are glad that Mom's company decided to put on such a neat event!
