Playa del Carmen

Mexico log #2:

The second reason we were down in Mexico was to perform at a venue in Playa del Carmen. The new upscale restaurant, Wicky's, had their grand opening for entertainment. We were asked to be the first team to perform at this beautiful venue. Wicky's sits right on the beach and this was our view from the piano:






They even made a near life size poster of us to promote the event:



The streets of Playa remind me of the small towns in southern France. We both fell in love with this beautiful resort town. There are so many different nationalities living in the area. Most predominately are Italian, Dutch, German, and American. This lends to a very international feel to a beautiful Mexican town... except for the Tequila everywhere.

Jeff hanging out on the street outside of Wicky's.

My mom's very good friend's sister, Patsy Chilson, is a real estate agent in Playa. She very generously offered us her extremely beautiful penthouse condo for the week. (http://www.elite-luxury-properties.com/mv416.aspx). It was one of the nicest places we have ever had the privilege of staying in:

The living room area

Kitchen

Master bedroom

Guest bath

Interior courtyard of the condo complex

Second level, private dining/hot tub area

Hot tub with view of the beach

The weather was brilliant while we were there. A perfect 82 degrees everyday. We spent much of our free time on the beach:

My feet.

The whitest girl on the beach!

This is a video I took of some seagulls. I thought it was very cool.

This is a video Jeff took...a little tour of where we were staying:

We really enjoyed our time in Playa del Carmen and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fantastic vacation spot. We actually go back to Cancun next week for two more corporate events. This time maybe I'll actually lay off the sunscreen so I look like I've been in sunny weather!

Cancun

¡Hola! We are currently in Mexico and having just an amazing time. This blog entry will be done over the course of a couple days as we are here for two different reasons. The first, is for a corporate event we performed for Pioneer Hi-Bred International. The event was at the Secrets Murano Resort in Cancun (6 star resort). We had an incredible time performing for the group. Bill Hopkins Events booked us for the event and they were a true pleasure to work with. The company put us up in the Aldea Thai resort...see photos below:

The view from our balcony

The walkway in the resort

Our room

The pool


Me posing with a Thai statue

Jeff & Glen posing with the Thai statues

The event was unbelievable. We performed our corporate dueling pianos show for the first section of the evening and then had the honor of performing with Glen Schricker, drummer extraordinaire, for the dance portion of the evening. We even had the honor of playing a few songs with Bill Hopkins himself (www.hoprock.com). Below are a few pictures from the resort we performed at:

Jeff, Glen, and Bill at a beautiful french restaurant at the resort.

The entrance to the restaurant

The hotel ballroom we performed in.

Below is a video that was shot from someone in the audience early in the evening. Jeff singing Under the Boardwalk....

The end of the evening had all 300 guests on their feet dancing the night away. We are looking forward to coming back in a couple weeks to perform for a different division of Pioneer, again in Cancun. Thanks to Bill Hopkins for everything!

I will post again tomorrow with the details about our shows we are currently performing in Playa del Carmen....

Keizer's First Citizen Awards Banquet

We are performing at Keizer's First Citizen Awards Banquet on February 6 at the Civic Center in Keizer, OR. If anyone from the area is interested in attending, it is open to the public. For ticket information visit keizerchamber.com. It sound like it's going to be a lot of fun...and I get to perform close to home! See the above flyer for all the details.

Vegas Baby!

We just returned from playing in Las Vegas for the week and we had a blast! One of our friends from Holland America Cruise Line is now the entertainment director for the Stratosphere and they have a brand new dueling pianos room in the casino. We performed at the club the first two nights in Vegas and had a great time.

The rest of our time in Vegas we performed at the new Palazzo casino. It is a gorgeous casino right next to the Venetian on the strip. The room we performed in, Salute, was one of the most beautiful dueling pianos rooms we have been in. The clientele was more sophisticated than a normal Vegas room, which we really enjoyed. Below are a couple pictures we took of the Palazzo room:



We had a wonderful time in Sin City and are looking forward to returning in the next few months.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Random Happenings

I was looking through our pictures of the last few months and found a couple amazing shots that Jeff took. This first is from the 4th of July. This is the view we have of the Lake Union fireworks from our balcony. It was truly an amazing display:



Every year during August in Seattle the city holds what is called Seafair. Unfortunately, we are usually gone during this action packed weekend. This year we flew back while the Blue Angels were performing their airshow. This is a picture from our balcony of the planes flying right over our condo:



These next group of photos are from our Thanksgiving party. Our friends from our old neighborhood came over and we had a party the night before Thanksgiving in our owner's lounge. I made a delicious ham (yes, I cooked) and everyone brought their favorite side dish:

Holiday Parties with Microsoft

This week we performed at two different Microsoft holiday parties. We had a great time and are very thankful for the enthusiastic guests.

The first event was at the Seattle Tennis Club. This was our first time in this beautiful venue. I was able to take a couple pictures during set up:





The second event was at the Four Seasons downtown Seattle. This third year performing for this group and it was the best year yet! We had so much fun. There was 500 Microsoft employees in attendance at the beautiful Four Seasons ballroom. Jeff took a couple pictures during set up:


The photography group Team Photogenic was on site and they will have some brilliant pictures of the event soon that we will post.

Thank you Microsoft! We'll see you again next year!