Christmas came early for 14-year-old twins Zoe and A’nina Pasco. That’s because their father, Air Force Tech Sergeant Anthony Pasco, returned home to North Carolina after being gone for six months, and surprised them as they were cheering on their middle school basketball team.
With pom-poms in hand, Zoe and A’nina noticed something different about their mascot, a grey dolphin who usually doesn’t look so large and lethargic.
“We all knew he was little bit taller and he looked like a grown man because usually ‘Splash’ is just a little kid and he wasn’t even doing anything. He was just like sitting there like ‘what’s wrong with him?'” Zoe explained to Spectrum News.
Little did they know that Splash was really their father waiting for halftime to reveal that he had come home early after being stationed in San Antonio, Texas.
Lucky for us, The Charlotte Observer was there to capture the moment Pasco took off the dolphin head:
“To see their faces, her face, as I was taking off the helmet, I saw her face go like this and then like, ‘What is he doing?’ and then I took it off,” Pasco joyfully told ABC13.
His daughters admitted that the surprise left them dazed.
“I was like really surprised. I just couldn’t even breathe when I saw him. I was speechless for real,” A’nina told Spectrum News.
According to The Charlotte Observer, the girls’ mother, Paula Washington, who is retired from the Air Force, came up with the idea to disguise Pasco. It helped that cheerleading coach Jodi Dimond was fully on board with the idea.
“The girls had mentioned to me before how they missed their dad,” Dimond said. “When the mom asked me, I knew they were going to be so excited.”
And for Pasco, trading in a military uniform for flippers was worth every bit of that excitement.
