As a consummate planner, I have to have a Calendar for the summer. This Calendar helps us plan what we are going to do. Once a week or so we have one big thing we do, visit a museum, berry picking in Gainesville area, Fort Worth Stockyards, Dallas World Aquarium, something that takes most of the day. Then we sprinkle in movies, swimming, cooking classes, mini golf, ice skating (using mittens in the summer was a blast!). And we always left plenty of time for visits to the local pool, play dates, sleepovers and just hanging out.

This year was busier than normal and I did not get a calendar done. The Calendar was a compass for our summers. We knew there would be something fun coming up. And since we shared the Calendar with our friends, it was a guaranteed day that both the kids and I could do something with people we enjoy. I entered summer with a bit of dread.

All was not lost. I am blessed to have a creative family and my niece Emily, 13, along with her friends in Kansas City, came up with a great idea for their summer - a Bingo Sheet. This simple exercise created a guide for our summer!

To create the Bingo Sheet, the girls created them for each other, filling it with things like books the other should read, movies to watch (many were ones from their childhood), a picnic in a park, bake cookies, paint their nails a wild color. Once five boxes in a row were completed, they treated each other to something, perhaps a movie, sleepover or a pedicure. The idea was to share what they loved to do with the other, getting the other to experience new things and best of all - doing it with friends.

On her annual visit down to see us this summer, she created one for my kids, Marielle, 9, and Christian, 7. The Sheet served as a guide to what she would like to do while she was visiting her much younger cousins. All three created it, so it was their wishes and desires.

The simplicity of the sheet was heartwarming. Make summer journals, go to the pool, ride bikes, have a sleepover, try Jamba Juice, go berry picking (a frequent item on our agenda, it seems), see the Nancy Drew movie and more. Had I made the list, I would have filled it with things like Six Flags, Tarantula Train and adventures that tend to be big and more costly.

Maybe we should take a look at what we think we need to do to entertain our kids (and ourselves). Do we need to do all the really big stuff all the time? Would they rather just spend time with you doing the simple things that we did as kids... explore the creek by the house, fly a kite? What is your Bingo Sheet is filled with?