Siblings team up to surprise dad with 1 last carpool before retirement
"We just wanted to congratulate him on a job well done."
A group of siblings teamed up to surprise their beloved dad with one last carpool on his final day of work, and the TikTok video documenting the experience has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of TikTok users.
Matt Houlihan shared the video to his TikTok page and told "Good Morning America" he came up with the idea after seeing the social media trend of adult grandchildren surprising their grandparents with impromptu sleepovers, which he said "struck a chord" with him.
"We spent so much time in the car with [our parents] just carpooling to and from school that I thought it would be a funny idea and cute to just go and spend some time, one more time, with dad in the car," the 33-year-old said.
Matt Houlihan, his older brother Brian Houlihan, 37, and older sister Kelsey Houlihan Ford, 35, put their heads together, looping their mom Stephanie Houlihan in on the surprise, assembling a playlist, and, of course, packing a backpack.
In the video, the siblings hide out in the living room of their parents' home in San Jose, California, waiting until their dad Tim Houlihan walks in before yelling out, "Happy last day of school!"
Tim Houlihan worked for 41 years, first as a teacher, coach and bus driver, and then as an administrator at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California. All the Houlihan siblings also attended Saint Francis, and the family share fond memories of the school.
"It was a lot of fun, I mean, just getting to spend time with your kids and being on campus with your kids," the elder Houlihan said.
As the Houlihans carpooled together and revisited their old routine, like listening to Outkast's "Hey Ya!" and stopping at their breakfast spot, House of Bagels, Tim Houlihan said it was special simply to spend the morning together with his kids again.
"It was just a lot of fun getting to spend the morning with them. House of Bagels, their profits are going down since we're not coming in every morning now, spending our few bucks with them, but that was another fun part of it, just re-creating our daily trip," he said.
The Houlihan siblings said they loved honoring their dad by re-creating what became a cherished tradition over the years while they were all in high school.
"No big speeches were made that day, no awards were handed out but it felt really appropriate to honor the little moments and the traditions that made our time in high school with him so special in a really fun and lighthearted way," Houlihan Ford said.
"It shows how proud we are of him and that he's done so much for us and his family that we just wanted to congratulate him on a job well done and, you know, celebrate his legacy," Brian Houlihan added.