15 hours and 13 minutes.

That’s all that’s left of the summer of 2009 at our house.  And we must have had too much fun around here, because it went by entirely too fast.

We made many wonderful memories this summer.  Here are the ones I remember the most:

1. Celebrated my middle guys 9^th birthday this summer.  A birthday that will go down as the year I locked the entire family out of the house (and car) on the way to his birthday dinner. I will never hear the end of this.  Never.
2. Sleepovers anyone?  The boys slept over, had sleep overs, slept in each other's rooms.  They were nomads.
3. After 17 years, the washer finally gave out.  This was the year I entered the 20^th century and bought the front loader.  For the record I miss the old machine terribly.
4. It was a life changing summer.  Decided to spend our life living life and not living in the car.  We walked to get ice cream, rode bikes to get lunch and drove 2 miles to the pool instead of 30.
5. This was the year our youngest was old enough to join his brothers on the swim team.  And also the year our new team beat the old team.
6. My baby lost his first tooth this summer.  How can that be?
7. We made wonderful new friends and kept the old ones.
8. We watched old friends move out of town and in turn, gained a new city to visit.
9. Coldstone Creamery makes cupcakes.  Big discovery this summer.
10. Business was good the summer of 2009.  Received recognition from Martha Stewart, completed my first official celebrity order, worked with clients in Australia, Canada and the U.K.  Saw my work in a magazine.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.
11. This was the year Michael Jackson passed away.  And my hard rock music lover son discovered pop wasn’t so bad after all.  Still working on that moon walk.
12. Got to see the inside of a toll booth this summer.  Really could have gone without that experience.
13. We became a family with an overpriced and never used basketball hoop at the end of our driveway.
14. Learned how to play ghosts in the graveyard and stayed up until midnight playing it.
15. We didn’t go to the beach this summer.  And that was okay.
16. Our family ate our body weight in hamburgers, mini corn dogs and ice cream sandwiches.  We drank soda.  Bed times no longer existed.  We got up late and there were days the boys never changed out of their pajamas.  We didn’t always collect the mail.   The boys played too many video games and watched too many movies.  We ate candy and didn’t always brush our teeth.   We relaxed.

And it was the best summer ever.