I seem to always be so buried in travel and logistical planning that I’m still way back in Croatia with my behind-the-scenes stories and posts. Meanwhile, my husband has moved on with his updates to the Photo Gallery, including brief summaries. He last left off in Croatia and Paris. While I catch up, you can take a sneak peek at our travels in September to and through the Alsace region of France, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany, the Austrian Alps and Slovenia.

We found my husband’s old haunts from his days in Switzerland, stumbled into Oktoberfest, visited my grandparents’ home town, drove through the Alps, and spent time on an organic farm that turned out to be far from what we expected (more on that to come).

Then check out our visit in early October to Rome, with day trip to the ancient Roman ruins in Ostia Antica (think Pompei without the ghoulish bodies).

After that, get a glimpse of our whirlwind adventure through eight cities in China over three weeks, including emotional visits to see where the girls were born.

I’ll be filling in with color commentary in the near future. Until then, you’ll get a sense of the ground we covered and why by early November, on the Monopoly board of round-the-world travel, we decided to bypass the rest of southeast Asia and head directly to Australia without passing Go and collecting our $200. It was time to settle down for awhile.