"UnToppable"

For months Bart has been telling me that he had the greatest surprise for me for Christmas. He's been telling me that my Christmas surprise was untoppable and once he gave me this he might as well forget about ever getting me anything else because he'd raised the bar too high.

So for months I've been racking my mind to figure out what could be that cool.

Well...

Boy was he right!!!

This is the playhouse that is in my parents back yard. It was built by my great grandfather for my Grandma Ann in the 1930's when she was a little girl. My dad is the oldest child and had the girls first, so we lucked out and got it. It was moved up to my parents house when they built it before I was even born. They basically landscaped there yard around it.

This is my entire childhood. This was my second home. This is where we constantly played house with all our friends, where I made my babysitter cry because I was being mean to her. This is where we ran away to when we were mad at my parents, where I taught all the neighbor kids how to play poker and won a lot of loot, (it didn't go over so well with too many of the parents, but I'm not sure I really even knew how to play). This was my brothers fort and the our refuge for water balloon fights. Its my whole childhood and the greatest present in the whole world.

He even found a picture that had the swingset in the background, that isn't there anymore, because he wanted me to have the swingset in the picture as well. How cool is that, am I the luckiest girl or what?

So Christmas Eve night, we'd been at my parents doing all the festivities. We got home and all the sudden the doorbell rang, I was slightly confused, who would be coming by now. Well it was my parents. Bart was going to give me my present and they wanted to see my face when I opened it. He went downstairs and came back up with a the wrapped package. Immediately I could tell it was a picture. In my head I was thinking, Cool he got one of the Kent Wallis prints framed (its been on my to do list for a year).

As I started opening it I immediately noticed that it wasn't a print but an original oil painting. I'm completely shocked and as I keep opening I continued to get more and more speachless. I opened it some more to the point where I could start to see the picture. In my head I'm thinking: "this is the playhouse, is it really my playhouse or a house that looks like my playhouse? IT IS MY PLAYHOUSE, but how is there a painting of the playhouse? Where did he find a painting of it, how is this possible?" It wasn't until he pointed down at the signature "Jeff Wallis" that I finally understood and realized... "HE HAD IT PAINTED FOR ME!!!!"

Tears filled my eyes, I was so touched and amazed that he could come up with such an incredibly thoughtful and touching idea.

I still just stop and stare at it and everytime I do, my eyes tear up again. I'm so grateful for a wonderful husband who knew this would be the most special present in the whole world.

I LOVE IT and I LOVE YOU, Barty Pants.

I'm sure I have a few readers with some memories of their own of the playhouse. If so, feel free to share. I'd love to see what people remember.