When I strum I tend to stop the movement of my strumming hand when it's a pause in the strumming pattern. Should my hand continue to strum without hitting the strings in this pause :?:
For instance:
DOWN DOWN UP (small pause) UP DOWN UP
"Trying is the first step towards failure." 
As long as your hand ends up where it needs to be for the next strum I'd say your okay.
Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear!
ChuckNorrisFactsdotCom
In your example you never really did stop moving.
Your hand had to go down to do the second upstroke.
It may seem like a pause because you didn't hit the strings on the way down but if you stayed in rhythm you didn't stop moving.
