Update and Holiday-y Photo dump, hehe!
First is the update.
It's less an update and more of an achievement.
I ran my 8 mile run today (it wasn't due until the weekend, but I was feeling in a mindset to do it, and Project Runway was on, so I figured I'd watch it at the gym, since we cancelled our cable last month, and do my long run). I got about 30 mins in (what would have been today's normal run) and had a serious internal debate on just stopping there and doing the rest of the PR episode on the bike, and coming back on the weekend for my "real" 8 mile run. I pushed through, though and got to 3 miles, walked a mile, ran a mile and by that point, the machine kicked me off! Apparently the machines are programed to cool down at 60 mins. So I reached 5.03 miles at 65 minutes. I ate my gel (Cherry Lime GU, some sort of high energy one), and my stomcah had an immediate dislike of me. I went to the bathroom for a quick break, and to refill my water bottle and again had to talk myself back to running. 5 miles is good, right? That's 1 mile more than my long run last weekend, it's cool! But no! The long run is 8 miles this week (Following Jeff Galloway program) and if I stopped now, I still needed to do it this weekend, and I was already 5 miles in, that's over halfway! So I got back on the treadmill. PR was over and I turned on my playlist and managed to get lost in my music, when I checked I was at 20 minutes! Briefly, I felt discouraged, I still had 20 minutes to go, dangit! But wait, silly head (yes, these are the things that go on in my head during a run), you just did 65 minutes, and now, amazingly, I just did 20 minutes without even noticing. I got to 2 miles (about 26 minutes) and walked for .5 miles, and finished out the last .5 miles (putting my total at 8.04miles) running. My pace worked out to 12 mins 56 sec. Not my fastest, but it seems to be my average for longer runs (even 4 seconds off my average!)
On the drive home, I got to thinking. I felt really REALLY accomplished. I had done 6.2 miles a little over a month ago, and I felt good, but I didn't feel accomplished. I'm not sure why, really. I worked up to the 6 miles over the course of a month (I'd run a 5k, then added a mile each week, leading to my first 10k), and this was only 1.8 miles more than my previous longest run. But somehow, 8 miles sounds like...amazing to me. I can't figure out why, haha!
Now the Holiday picture dump!
Stormy's big accomplishment for the week. TWO binkies! Good lord...
Seeing Santa at the mall! He was...less than pleased. Our Santa was suuuper nice and understanding, though (which is how we got this decent shot!). He was trying his darndest to get Stormy to smile (last years Santa, the second Stormy frowned, he went "OOP. Back to Mom you go!" )
This was at our city's tree lighting ceremony. It was super cute, they had the farmers market open and running (we bought Stormy a little wooden toy for Christmas!) and Santa came in on the fire truck (what we're looking at in the picture) and they had a big community carol singing thing. After, we went to my favorite restaurant for a salad and soup. The second picture, Stormy was playing with Baloo, he'd hold out his finger, for Baloo to "bite" then pull it away at the last second. He thought it was hilarious.
We were buying our new ornament at the mall (Macy's sells frame ornaments every year, with the year, so we get one each year and put our Santa pic in it). Stormy was walking next to us, and decided he really wanted to sit and look down at the lower level. So he veeeeery carefully climbed up on the tiny ledge (with the glass in the way, obviously, lol!) and then sat down and pressed his face against the little forcefield. He definitely looked nervous doing it (and kept checking to make sure the glass was there), but the little daredevil did it anyway. Gonna have to keep like, 8 eyes on him at Disney!
We decorated stockings at work! Naturally, I did the runDisney logo! I love how it turned out.
Last night was Food Truck Rally night. Every 2nd Wed of each month, food trucks in the area gather at the Farmers Market, and Baloo and I looooove going to them! Last night was extra special, because they also had a Christmas party going on, so, another crack at Santa! He was also excellent, and Stormy clapped excitedly, gave him a high five....annnnd clung to me like a little monkey when Santa tried to get him to come to him. Oh well! Next year for sure. Since he did so good, we bought him a homemade decorated sugar cookie. As you can see, it had red frosting....yeeeeeah....
Last but not least! We finally got the tree up! I don't give Stormy enough credit, because I didn't think he'd really "get" what was going on, but the second he saw what Baloo and I were doing, he jumped right in and started putting ornaments on the tree!
He still needed a tiny bit of help, since he couldn't figure out those silly little hooks, and just sort of set the ornament on a branch.
He's also been REALLY good about not messing with it, which I'm pretty shocked by. He only goes over to it when the lights are on. I guess some things are just sacred!
We are just past midnight here, so I believe that means we're at 69 days to go! 9 days to Fast Pass selection, yay!
I'm an 80s girl, so 70s stuff just seems OLD to me. 
