2/3 tank of gas

In the past 2 days we've gone through 2/3 of a tank of gas! Yikes, that's a lot of driving. Here's a map:

And here's where we went:

Point D on the map - Lincolnshire, IL...our starting & ending point.

Point B on the map - Illinois Holocaust Museum
Today we went to the Illinois Holocaust Museum. I didn't even know that they had one here until we saw a sign for one when we were here in January. Another nevus mom, Beth (son Sully), had gone to it in January as well. As I mentioned from my post yesterday, I'm a HUGE Holocaust fan...wait, "fan"??? No that's definitely not the word. Enthusiast? Pro? How about this: The Holocaust REALLY interests me! I've done numerous reports on it, read many books on it, went to the museum in Washington, D.C., and also went to the concentration camp Dachau in Germany. It's just so interesting/fascinating to me that I can't ever learn enough about the subject. When I'm at the point that I think I know so much...I go to a place like the IL Holocaust Museum & I learn SOOO much more.

We pulled up to an architectural wonder. (Sorry...the picture could have been better but, as you can't see in the picture, it was raining a lot so I just took it & went on my way!)

Illinois Holocaust Museum

The architecture continued throuout the museum, following the feel of the whole story. We were told that there was a tour at 2pm that we should take advantage of. We had just about 15 mins to wait but weren't quite sure if we wanted to or not. I just knew that the guide would go way too fast through the museum...so that once we finished I'd want to go back through it by ourselves. But the security guard said that it was well worth it & that we'd learn a lot of things that aren't written on the walls or the displays. So we decided to go ahead & do it, even though we weren't quite sure.

All I can say is...THANK GOODNESS WE DID THE TOUR!!!!!!!!! It was my kind of tour. Our guide's name was Dovie & she has been involved with the museum for years. She's actually one of the people who we can credit for obtaining many of the artifacts that are in the museum today. She was very knowledgable about the whole subject & she told many stories. This was all stuff that we wouldn't have known if we'd walked through the museum ourselves without doing the tour. We started out with about 9 in our tour & ended up with just about 4 or 5 of us (the others went on ahead), but I'm so glad we stayed with Dovie & got to hear all of her stories. I loved hearing all the stuff she had to say. It was a long tour, but very well worth it. Brooklyn fell asleep about 5 mins in to the tour & woke up about 20 mins before it was over, so that was nice for us!

We were able to go inside a train car that was used to transport people to the concentration camps. The architecture, displays, walls, pictures, artifacts, glass, & EVERYTHING was just phenominal. It was very well done & I'm so glad we ended up going. At the end of the tour we stood & talked with some of the nice ladies & Dovie, our guide, & told them about Brooklyn. She was wide awake & walking all over so we told them all about our little bubble girl. It was a great afternoon, but after a bit Brooklyn started getting a little antsy so we needed to leave. We got in our car & saw that it was 4:30pm!! WOW! Besides the fact that we were in there a while, the museum & the tour is HIGHLY recommended!!!

Hanging out in the car

Point C on the above map - Woodfield Mall, Schaumberg, IL
We came here in January when we had dinner with The Melton's & The Moller's at Rainforest Cafe. We'd heard that before the Mall of America was built, this was the biggest mall in the country. This mall is what all malls should be!! It's amazing. We both really like this mall, except it's a little far from our hotel so it can't be a quick-trip kind of place.

We were starving so we went in & found the directory & decided to eat at PFChangs. Oh boy was that amazingly good. Thankfully my smell & taste is up to about 25% now (I'm almost over that darn cold) so I could taste some of it! :o)  We got egg drop soup, crispy green beans, sesame chicken, almond/cashew chicken, & dessert....mmmmm! Brooke wasn't too happy to be sitting in a seat so we couldn't stay as long as we wanted, but we still got to enjoy our food & the atmosphere.

Then we just decided to walk around a little bit...but needed to get back to the hotel so we could get to sleep. Tomorrow.....surgery. More about that in my next post...