Dad sends wife away for five days, and does something incredible while she's gone

Dad-of-two Darius did not have a great 2014; he lost his job, apartment and had to move into a friend's spare room. His insurance company also cancelled his policy as he couldn't afford the payments, and – not long after  – he was diagnosed with skin cancer.

Thankfully, things started to pick up and he found himself working again, and a doctor took him on as a "charity patient", helping him to battling his cancer once and for all.  

And in a bid to thank his wife and family for helping him through the tough times, he decided to do something special: build a dream playhouse with space for his wife to exercise.

Oh, and he sent his lovely other half on a five day trip to New York to be able to get the job done without telling her. 

He asked his friends to give him wood and lumber for his birthday, and with the help of his daughters, set about making his family's dream come true – before his wife returned home. 

"I didn’t finish it by the time my wife got back, so I had to send her away again to take another four days off to go to her sister’s baby shower up in Sacramento while the girls and I worked away," he wrote on his blog, Clueless Father.

"And…I still didn’t finish it. I learned that trying to build a playground and take care of your kids at the same time can be really stressful but we did have a blast!

"I also ran out of money well before finishing, so I had to look for some work I could do on a weekend to be able to buy more materials. So I built a deck for someone else! (and beat the crap out of my back again.)"

Check out the finished work here: