apple picking in Julian, CA

Life these days is full of so much stuff!

A first grade school schedule, a preschool schedule, a baby nap schedule. 

Then there is homework, dishes, laundry, cleaning the house, playing with the baby, teaching and playing with the four year old, ballet, dinner, baths, bedtime. 

Oh! What about time for mommy to shower, exercise, hang out with daddy, etc.

And sleep. I'd like more of it please. 

But if I sleep I'll miss out on too much. I won't have time for it all. 

We are in the thick of it! 

This is it, folks!

This is the time of life I will most likely look back on longingly.

One day I'll miss the chaos, the lack of sleep, and kids all over me.

We have decided to embrace it. 

Friday Daphne had no school. We can blame this on California and their teachers contracts and blah blah blah or we can embrace it and do something fun. We chose the latter.

Kelly took the day off from work and off we went.

We had heard from numerous people about the quaint little town of Julian, about an hour and 45 min away. Inland from San Diego it hides and its famous for its apples.

We stopped in a little town called Ramona, just 30 min outside of Julian at a little pumpkin farm.
The kids had oodles of fun running around outside amongst the pumpkins and then even more fun inside the little barn area with all sorts of pumpkins.

We left spending way too much money on pumpkins.

When we were packing up to leave the pumpkin farm the nicest older couple approached us and asked if we were on our way to Julian to pick apples.
We told them yes and then chatted with them for a bit.

Then they said that they had an apple orchard and they were on their way to their cabin and we were more than welcome to pick their apples for free.

We listened to the directions to their orchard but didn't really think much of it.
On our way to a 'u-pick' apple orchard we passed by the little sign of 'baked apple orchard' and saw the gate was open. Instantly we knew the orchard belonged to the people we had met only an hour before. We decided to check it out.
I'm so glad we did. As we climbed the steep hill to their orchard we passed wild turkeys running around.
They greeted us as we pulled in and talked with us about their own grandchildren and then gave us bags, and an apple picker and showed us around their orchard.

I don't know why it meant so much to Kelly and I but their kindness and love was shocking. We didn't know them. We had never met them. And I wish I had gotten more than just a first name from them. Their good nature reminded me so much of all the good that is still out there in the world!

I'm honestly so happy we made that stop to get pumpkins so that we could meet those nice people.

After apple picking we said our goodbyes and drove around the little town, ate massive amounts of pie and donuts, and just had ourselves a good time.