Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. I have weathered the storm of the busiest part of my Christmas season in Week 2. I was determined to get my runs in at the start of the week. However, the holidays hit me hard and I only got 1 training run in this week. That’s the sad news. The fun news is that I had an amazing week otherwise…..aaaaaaaaaand….I made it through the busiest week of my Christmas season. So, there is a light at the end of this tunnel and I’m determined to get back on the training wagon in week 3.

So, on Tuesday (of last week), everything got off to a fantastic start! The first mile seemed to come too fast again. I was slightly fearful that where the Garmin placed mile 1’s ending was not exactly where it should have been again. If you remember, the week before, on my first training run for the LA Marathon, I had a similar problem. Just like that run, mile 2 took much longer to complete. However, I was only slightly over the 12 minute per mile pace at the end of mile 2. I didn’t panic too much because I knew mile 3 on this route has been money to me thus far in the LA Marathon training. So, the question, heading into mile 3 was how far under 36 minutes would I be? I needed to bank some time to help me to get through mile 4 with a decent finish time.

As you can see by the splits, I did have a really nice mile 3. I finished mile 3 in the same time as mile 1! Not bad! When I saw that I was under 36 minutes at mile 3’s end. I kept pushing all the way through mile 4. Much to my surprise, I finished this run in the same time I finished my 4 miles on Thanksgiving! At the end of mile 2, I wasn’t so sure that would happen. Yay for consistency!

I don’t remember why I didn’t get out and run on Wednesday, as planned. However, that was missed run number 1. I knew I wouldn’t get to running on Thursday because we had the dress rehearsal for the Disneyland Candlelight Processional on Thursday evening. So, I went from a full day at work to driving down to Disneyland from the Walt Disney Studios. Then, I had some dinner and made my way to backstage Disneyland to meet up with the Disney Employee Choir. Dress rehearsal is a lot of hurry up and wait. Our call time is 8:30pm. Eventually, we’ll line up the living Christmas Tree for all 4 shows and practice getting up on the risers. Then, at around 11pm, we start the run through of the entire program top to bottom. It’s totally fun, but tiring. I didn’t end up leaving Disneyland until around 1am Friday morning. So, I knew I wasn’t going to get a lot done on Friday. Year’s past have taught me that Friday is the recovery day.

Here’s where indecision hurt me over the weekend. You see, I wasn’t singing Candlelight until Sunday. So, I planned on running 4 miles Saturday. Except, I had a hard time sleeping Friday night. So, I thought…okay…I’ll go to the gym instead. Except, I knew I’d be standing rather still for 45 minutes at Candlelight the next day. If I had sore muscles from it being my first gym workout in months, that wouldn’t be good. So, I ended up skipping all workouts on the weekend. Ugh!

Saturday evening, we did go to Disney Lights Up the Season at the Walt Disney Studios. This is such a fun event and I was pretty excited that, for the first time since I worked for Disney, it was held on a weekend. So, Brooke and Colton could come along!

I was pretty excited that Colton got to meet Buzz Lightyear for the first time!

The family photo with Buzz came out alright. I think Colton wanted more time with Buzz to figure out who this guy was.

We also got Colton’s first picture with Mickey Mouse! The line was huge and Colton handled the line like a pro…

When the wait is long, just sleep on daddy!

We were there to see the tree all lit up for the first time this Christmas season. Colton was checking out all this new stuff that he’s never seen before!

See what I mean? We have several photos with Colton not looking at the camera. He had more important things to look at. All in all, it was a totally fun evening and Colton handled the cold and the crowds like a champ. Although, when we finally arrived home afterwards, he got a huge smile. He knew he’d finally get some time to roam around. I think that’s the hard part of going to events like this. Colton doesn’t get to explore like he does in more controlled environments.

Sunday was my day to sing in the Disneyland Candlelight Processional. Singing with the Disney Employee Choir is one of the highlights of my year each and every year. This year, I sang in the first show Sunday. Our guest narrator was Ginnifer Goodwin (the voice of Judy Hopps in Zootopia)!

This is show I was in! At the 15:50 mark, I can even see the top of my head! I’m on the bottom row of the tree and usually pretty well hidden. So, it’s always cool to me when I actually see myself. If you’re looking at the video, I’m on the right side of the living Christmas tree. I think there are 4 people in front of me. I’m trying to put together a proper Candlelight post. In it, I’ll do a screen grab to show where I was. Anyways, it was such a fun show. Ginnifer Goodwin did a wonderful job with the narration. By the time we get to the Hallelujah Chorus, I’m always a bit sad because my Candlelight season is coming to an end. This year was my personal best year of singing Candlelight. If there was a PR in singing, this year would be my Candlelight PR! Ha!

I got back in Disneyland with enough time to secure a FastPass to the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion, grab some dinner, and head to Pirates of the Caribbean before heading back to the Haunted Mansion!

So, I went from seeing one Jack….

…to another Jack!

This year, they even added Sally to the attraction!

Next, I headed over to It’s A Small World Holiday to see what the wait time was like. When they told me it was around 20 minutes, I had to get in line. This attraction is routinely over 45 minutes during the Christmas holidays.

While I was in line, the Christmas fireworks started up. So, I got a rather unique view of the fireworks! This was Disney Christmas Magic at its finest!

I’ve always said that if this attraction doesn’t put you in the Christmas spirit, you might be dead inside.

I had to take this pic in honor of my Hispanic son! Feliz Navidad!

Yep…if this attraction doesn’t put you in the Christmas Spirit, you might just be dead inside. Just sayin’!

After all the craziness of this presidential election cycle, I think we all could use a little Peace on Earth. Don’t you think?

No trip to Disneyland over the holidays is complete without seeing Sleeping Beauty’s Castle all lit up! With this, I’ll bring this post to an end.