Three-year-old Kai saw his wish come true this month when he turned the corner of his house to see his completed barn playset in front of him. For a minute, Kai stood there silently in shock at the sight of his brand new playset and all the people there to support him before his friend encouraged him to run over and check it out. 

 The farm-like, 33-foot-long structure features a ladder, rock wall, blue slide and two swings. The blue slide is housed in a 16-foot-tall silo.

Make-A-Wish Michigan in partnership with Out On a Limb Playhouses, Grand Haven, and Dan Vos Construction, Ada, reveled the brand new farm playset April 28 in Kai’s home in Hamilton.

Kai with his family celebrating the completion of a farm-like play structure in his backyard.

Kai, who has a congenital cardiac condition, was adopted from an orphanage in Shanghai. When he arrived in Michigan and saw all the farms, he was completely fascinated as he had never seen one before. Kai's heartfelt wish was to have a red barn playset with a blue slide for his backyard. Kai has been obsessed about all things blue and repeatedly talked about the blue slide that he would have. To no one's surprise, Kai went down the blue slide too many times to count at the reveal.

"Kai's dad, Christopher, says seeing farms for the first time was a new experience for Kai's. "After coming from the orphanage and coming here - we're fairly rural - and seeing farms with animals, he thinks farms are the greatest thing."

When Kai first saw the sketch of what the playhouse would look like, he said it was the "best playhouse ever!"

Mike Fraser at Out On a Limb Playhouses donated his services to complete the build, while Dan Vos Construction donated all of the lumber. 

When Kai was hospitalized for a week due to a new health condition last month, Fraser was concerned about Kai and wanted to make him feel better.

 “He Facetimed us so that we could see him working on it," says Kai's mom, Jen. "He took them around and showed him the lumber sitting there. The first thing he asked Mike was, 'Where is my blue slide?' It was a blue slide reveal on Facetime just so he could see it. It was just what he needed at that moment."

As Kai's health conditions have progressed and become more complex than anticipated, his family is happy to know that he has a spot in the backyard where he can explore and just play like any other child.

"It's a playhouse, but it's so much bigger than that," Jen said. "I think coming from the orphanage, it has been surgeries and hospitalizations and doctor appointments. This lets him be a kid where he hasn't had that chance."

Source: Make-A-Wish® Michigan