The Simple Life

Remember the reality series the Simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richey. Two socialite, rich girls thrown on a farm and expected to do everything a farmer should. I never watched the show but thought the premise was funny. I don't think I ever watched more than a clip of the show but did think it was funny to take two very rich girls and put them to work with the "poorest" of families.

All that to say, sometimes the simplest things in life are the best. I spend most of my time trying to plan big, highly technical programs/events/whatever. Trying to compete with society for the most grabbing of videos or one-liners or images. I found out Thursday night that I don't need to do that. I have done an event called Ice & Ice for many years. Just an easy night of going ice skating and then grabbing ice cream. This usually is a very easy event to pull off. The students have a fun night of just hanging out. This year as we began to plan this event we realize that we couldn't get an ice skating rink for the night we wanted to do it. Thankfully there is a roller skating rink around that we were able to rent out. For just $225 we were able to have the whole rink to ourselves.

I was worried that we wouldn't have a good turnout because I wasn't sure how many of the students still skated, but we moved ahead anyways. Once we announced what we were doing the students seemed to be excited about it. Long story short, this was one of our biggest events (attendance wise) to date. We had over 50 students and 15 adults show up and participate. I thought it was great to see some of the adults get out there and skate with the students. I enjoyed the night and I know that most of the students did too. It was fun to go back old school style and just have a fun night out.

We are looking at doing this again in the future, maybe for New Years or planning a family night out and inviting the whole congregation. We are trying to do more family oriented events that incorporate everyone. We think this will build better families and then a better church.

What other events can we do that are simple and family friendly?