As a gift for his grandchildren, this grandfather from Oregon bought them a vehicle that they will surely love – a small yellow school bus that will take them to school!
Doug Hayes has 10 grandkids, and he presented the sweet surprise to them just days before Christmas in his Gladstone, Oregon home. To make the vehicle more special, he had the words “Grandfather Express” plastered across its side.
“When they saw it, they were just ecstatic,” Doug told CNN.
In a video shared by KGW News, the grandchildren can be heard squealing with excitement as they explored the bus.
“It was a big surprise! All of us were really stunned. I never expected him to buy a bus!” one boy says in the footage while a little girl says “It was really fun!”
“I thought maybe there’s a way I can give them a memory that would last all their lives,” Doug told KGW News in the clip.
Doug has five grandchildren who currently attend Paideia Classical Christian School which isn’t big enough to have its own school buses. Instead, parents have to drop off their children every day.
“The kids have always said, ‘Gee whiz, I like our school, but we would like to be able to have a school bus,'” Doug said.
And to grant his grandchildren’s wish, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
Next year, two more of his grandkids will be of school age and will be able to aboard the Grandfather Express. Doug said that the kids all live within 20 minutes of each other, and that their school is just about two or three miles from his house.
Doug is happy that he’ll be able to take the kids to school in his new vehicle every morning.
“Then I can just drop my bus back here at the house and take my car to work,” he said.
The idea of purchasing a school bus came after Doug’s wife, Amy, asked him about any major goals that he’d like to accomplish. After contemplating about it for a few weeks, he revealed to her that “it would be the most fulfilling thing to take the grandkids to school in the morning.”
Amy was in full support of his goal and kept pushing him until they figured out a way to turn that dream into reality. They started looking for the perfect school bus and after a month of searching, they finally found one that would work for them.
The bus came pre-decorated with magnets of letters and numbers on the ceiling, which is just fitting for its soon-to-be regular passengers. Doug then had seatbelts installed in all of the seats.
While the kids are happy about having their personal school bus, it appears that their loving grandfather is the most excited of all.
“It’s primarily about getting to spend a few minutes with them every single morning,” he said. For this sweet gesture, Doug just earned the title ‘Grandfather of the Year’!
Watch the video below as Doug and his grandchildren will embark on their first bus ride in January when school resumes.
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