A teen who bonded with her stepdad over a love of trucks was left crying with happiness when he surprised her with her first-ever vehicle for her birthday. For Kylee Fullerton, 14, and stepdad Rusty, from Bolton, Mississippi, discussing trucks had become "their thing," her mom, Lindsay, said. For more than a year and a half, Kylee and Rusty, 43, had been talking trucks and sending photos back and forth to each other, opining on what they liked and didn't like about each one. So with Kylee's 14th birthday coming up, Lindsay and Rusty spoke about surprising her with her first vehicle – and by purchasing an old truck, Kylee and Rusty could spend the next year working on the vehicle as a project before she could legally drive. Over the weeks leading up to the celebrations, Rusty sent Kylee hundreds of different photos of trucks, each time receiving his stepdaughter’s opinion. Having sourced a 1986 square body Chevrolet Silverado, Rusty and Lindsay waited for Kylee to return from school, while Lindsay kept her daughter distracted as Rusty pulled the truck onto the driveway. Kylee then unwrapped what she thought was her main present – a purse she wanted – before she was encouraged to look inside. At first, she took a second to process what the keys she was holding might be for, before everything clicked, and she sprinted outside to see what awaited her. As soon as the teen set eyes on her new truck, she immediately dropped to the floor with emotion, fighting back tears and giving Rusty a big hug.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Oh my gosh!
00:05Oh my gosh!
00:07I've talked about wanting a truck for as long as I can remember, really.
00:13She wanted her first truck to be an old school, what they call a square body Chevrolet pickup.
00:19It's hard to describe. It's one of the things that you see them, you know you like.
00:22And that may just be because of her stepdad Rusty, who she's always been inseparable from and proudly calls dad.
00:30I've always worked on trucks. I've always had some type of either mud truck or car, something to always tank her on.
00:37And from a couple years of age, she's always been right there.
00:43I'll do it.
00:44No, I'll do it.
00:47I'm the fastest one to do it.
00:49I was just out there thinking I was the best at doing it.
00:52As long as I can remember, it's always been, where's dad? Oh, he's outside working on something.
00:59But now, the plan was to work on something together, Kylie's first truck.
01:04And her parents were determined to make it happen for her 14th birthday,
01:08which would give her and Rusty just enough time to tinker on it before she would start driving.
01:14We kept saying, oh, we're going to get you a little Honda car, a little Ford Ranger, something along them lines.
01:19And after lots and lots of searching, he finally found the one
01:24and went all the way from Louisiana to Mississippi to buy it and hide it before the big birthday reveal.
01:37Where are you going?
01:38I don't know. God, leave.
01:45Oh, my gosh.
01:48It was really just like a shock and a big surprise for me, especially on my birthday.
01:59I was just really happy about it.
02:02And it just was really heartfelt and touching, I guess, just got to me.
02:09Just really felt like I did the right thing.
02:11See the smiles, the tears, the screaming and the hollering.
02:14The hug just confirmed that I did the right thing.
02:17I kind of always grew up in a family that appreciated older trucks.
02:22And I feel like it's really cool for me to kind of keep that generation alive in my generation.
02:29Everybody nowadays wants the newest truck, the newest car.
02:32For my daughter to have the same love for an older, beat up, rusted truck.
02:38I think it's very, very neat that, you know, she's into the older vehicles.
02:42It's just, it's pretty proud, you know.
02:45And she's pretty proud of him, too, for being in her life since she was two years old.
02:51He's been there since day one.
02:53You know, they always say blood is thicker than water.
02:55I've had more people in my life stick around that are not blood and just support me.
03:02Family is who you keep around and who you keep close.
03:05Sometimes people who are not blood become more like family to you.
03:09And it makes me feel good to know that I was lucky enough to grow up the way I did.
03:18Just thank you for everything and thank you for paying attention over the years.
03:22Oh my gosh.
03:23You said you wanted to be your own truck, so we found you to be your own truck.
03:28You grow up, you think a lot, especially the young years, a lot of it.
03:31Everybody thinks that, you know, everything is you, you, you.
03:34And the more you grow up and the more family you have, you realize it's not you.
03:39It's them.
03:40Yes, you have to take care of yourself.
03:41You have to do things for yourself.
03:43But, you know, your family comes first.
03:45Her, my wife, that's my number one priority.
03:49Eh, I'll get to myself later.