Sometimes family doesn’t require there to be a blood-bond. From friends, to step-parents and to step-siblings, your family can be whatever you want it to be. It just requires love, and sometimes a bit of patience.

When Lacee Jusino was just a baby, her father walked out on her and her mother. For the past 8 years, however, she has been raised by Jason Jusino, who married her mother, Melany, when Lacee was 10-years-old.

The Florida family has weathered the ups and downs of life, but throughout it all, Jason has raised Lacee as if she was his own daughter. So for his 35th birthday, Lacee decided it was time to show him just how much he meant to her. To do that, all she needed was a scavenger hunt.

Jason Jusino reads his first clue in a scavenger hunt his stepdaughter, Lacee, set up for him. Photo by T&T Creative

While her mom filmed the entire day’s adventures, Jason followed the clues that Lacee had left for him. The hunt began in their home. The video shows Jason entering GPS coordinates and getting the location of the first clue – an envelope on a toy-store shelf. The rules were he had to collect each envelope before he could open them. They made their way to the toy store.

The second set of GPS coordinates led him to a pier on the beach. The third, a bar where he had to order two drinks using the code word ‘jester’. The bartender then gave him an envelope.

Next up was a trip to Build-A-Bear for the fourth envelope. Finally, the birthday man made his way to a restaurant, where he was allowed to open the envelopes. In them he found the words ‘will’, ‘you’, ‘be’ and ‘my’. The waitress then handed him the fifth envelope. In it – ‘dad’.

Will you be my dad?”

Jason couldn’t contain his emotion, crying as Lacee handed him the paperwork that would allow him to adopt her, and well as change her last name to his. The only requirement had to be that she was 18 before she could legally be adopted by him – and that special birthday had happened shortly before she started planning his gift.

Her mom, Melany, said that “Jason took on the responsibility of raising my children as his own. Lacee’s biological father walked away from her when she was just a small baby and denied he was her father. But Jason without hesitation took on the task of helping me raise her as his own for the last eight years.”

It took them three months to organize the scavenger hunt, Melany and Lacee said. They planned out the entire day and created the clues to lead Jason all over town.

“But when he figured out the sentence,” Melany said, “and Lacee presented the adoption papers, it was truly amazing.”

Watch below to see the heartwarming birthday surprise.