Davis-the last leg of our trip

In order to get some more fall weather, etc. we decided to head up to Apple Hill (which we did with Rowan 2 years ago when I was home too).

We got to sample some different apples and then went home with a bunch of Pink Lady apples (and of course got some apple fritters and caramel fudge apples at Abel's Acres :)

 There was a little museum behind Larsen's (a family orchard that has been there for generations). We loved it. There was tons of machinery (super old and rusty) which Rowan of course loved.

 Another fun thing was that my parents planted some things that would be ready to pick in time for Rowan to be there. I love that he had the opportunity to see food come out of the garden and then eat it. First crop was baby carrots. It was so fun :) He also got to pick mandarin oranges and persimmons off the trees. I have awesome parents who planned months ahead for us to be there.

 Boden even enjoyed gnawing on one for awhile :)

 Another suggestion my mom had was to go to the train museum. It was not something that I had ever considered before but considering Rowan loves any type of transportation, this seemed like a good option. It's in Old Town Sac and I hadn't been there in a really long time either. I have to admit I was totally impressed by this museum. I thought it was going to be a bit boring but had hopes that Rowan would be entertained. It totally delivered though. The main floor are a bunch of real full size train engines and cars. Some you are able to walk through, others are just to look at. And then upstairs is dedicated to model and toy trains with several tables of toy trains for the kids to play with. It was a perfect morning followed by a delicious lunch where we met my dad after work.

Saturday we headed to the Farmers Market (one of my favorite things to do when we're home). 

Tasting honey from bees that pollinated different types of flowers. The lavender was actually weirdly delicious. My favorite was the honey caramel though. Rowan is obsessed with eating honey now :) 

 His other new obsession is persimmons. He LOVES them. My parents have a tree so he got to eat lots while we were home :)

 After looking at and sampling all the gorgeous produce, we ate sticky buns and croissants. SO YUMMY!

 And then Rowan got a balloon dinosaur and some kettle corn (I told you he was spoiled :) but it was fun! Love getting to share some of my favorite things with my kids.

We wanted to leave out of Travis, but for the last several weeks there just seemed to be nothing going to Okinawa from there (without at least 2-3 layovers-which means it would have taken a whole week to get back), so we were going to fly back to Seattle and get the Patriot on Thursday. Saturday afternoon I pulled up the page to see if there happened to be any flights early in the week and I saw a direct flight from Travis to Kadena (which almost NEVER happens!) I freaked out a little because roll call was 5 hours from when I saw that. I wasn't ready to leave yet, we thought we had a few more days at least. However, with further thought and support from my family, we decided this was too good to pass up. So, we quickly headed home, packed up our stuff, grabbed some In-n-Out for lunch/dinner and headed to Travis.

We were category 2 and there were 64 seats so I was pretty confident we'd get on the flight (and we did). My family stayed with us at the airport until we left to go through security at about 8pm. It was nice to get to spend a little more time together since our trip came to an abrupt halt. We flew on a KC-10 which primarily a refueling jet but also carries cargo and passengers. The flight seemed to last forever (it was 14 hours and should have only taken 9). Come to find out we were the refueling jet for Air Force One on its way to somewhere in Asia so we went a really roundabout way to get back. We did get to go down below and check out the boom, etc which was a different setup than the KC135 that I had gotten to see when I flew 2 years ago. 

Overall the flights were exhausting but again went really well so couldn't complain. We were sad to leave but happy that we got home on Monday morning and had the week to recover before having to head back to work.

It was a fantastic trip home. I had been skeptical about going, but I'm so glad that we made the decision to just do it, everything worked out great and we loved getting to see so many people in our families!