I absolutely LOVE this time of year! It’s the beginning of fall and, although we have such warm weather in Southern California, the apple orchards are open by the end of September and the apples are ready for picking!

(How adorable is this sign I found at Home Goods?)

This year we decided to visit the adorable town of Julian, since it’s just a hop, skip & a jump away! (Ok maybe it’s actually a couple hours away) The downtown area of Julian is adorable and has many little shops, restaurants and pie shops. You can also ride in a horse-drawn carriage down the main street. The farms and apple orchards are all pretty close to the downtown area, so you can either stop at them on your way into town or as you’re leaving. On this particular trip, we ate lunch at Julian Cafe & Bakery,  before going apple picking. Not only was the food yummy, we also enjoyed drinking out of glass boot mugs! After lunch was when we wandered into the town pie shops and country stores.

Our favorite pie shop was Mom’s! We sat down inside to eat some warm pie a la mode and then we stopped at Mom’s again on the way out of town to take some pie home!
 (They have more than one location!)
This year we visited The Julian Mining Company for apple picking.
We bought a bag to put our freshly picked apples in.
 It was a bit tough to be there with a little perfectionist because Emi ONLY wanted to pick the perfect apples! Her selection process required a lot of patience on our part.
Luckily she was content after filling up one bag.
Little one-day adventures like this are something I hope will stick in Emi’s memories of her childhood.
So you tell me…do YOU think she had a good time?
Happy Fall!