Friday's Fave Five #474

Yipee, I finally get to use the spring tulip FFF button!  Even though we still have snow on the ground it's been melting like crazy, and even though there is still some snowfall warnings out in the province, we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel...hopefully.  It's been one long crazy winter and I am so glad to be saying it's officially spring.  So welcome to Friday's Fave Fave where we celebrate the blessings from the past week by sharing 5 of them.  If you are new here, the link is in the sidebar for the guidelines.

~surprise birthday treat~ it was my friend's birthday this week but she was going to be out of town for most of the week so Monday when I met up with her at the gym, I surprised her by skipping my gym time and taking her for her favorite treat instead,  a DQ blizzard.  It was a spur of the moment idea and it was so much fun to see her expression when I asked her and it was wonderful getting to spend some time together as we haven't been able to get together for awhile.  I'm so glad I followed through on the idea.  Bonus blessing was that it happened to be BOGO for 99 cents week on the blizzards this week.

~great movie treat~ Along with millions of people, I've always loved the song "I Can Only Imagine".  It just touches something deep down inside of me that Tuesday night a whole bunch of us went to go see "I Can Only Imagine" at the theatre.  What a great movie.  It is based on the real life story of Bart Millard and how his life led up to the writing "I Can Only Imagine" and how it took off and blessed millions world wide.  The song is the #1 Christian song of all time worldwide and was also the #1 requested song on several large secular stations.  The movie was really good and Dennis Quaid gave an amazing performance in his role as the Bart Millard's (the writer of the song) abusive father.  I may or may not have used quite a bit of kleenex.  Go see it, it's good, the end.

~playing with recipes~  when I have the time I love trying new recipes, or playing around with recipes to see what I can come up with or change up.  This week afforded a little bit of time to do that and it made me happy. ~outside time~ because of the crazy winter we have had, there has not been much outside time with the kids this year.  But this week saw us outside 3 days in a row enjoying warmth and sunshine.  The snow was still piled high in the backyard but we still we able to play around a bit.  It was so nice one day I even was out without my coat as I worked dumping snow by the shovelful into the alley in an attempt to have less melting close to the foundations of the house.  Kind of contradictory feeling that heat from the sun on my bare arms while I shoveling tons of snow but I will take it! ~open windows~  with the lovely warmth I've been able to pry open the windows, literally, as they got pretty much frozen shut a lot of the time over the winter.  Having that fresh air coming into every room in the house was absolutely lovely. What were your favorite blessings from the week?