About Murrieta's Murrieta West

Murrieta Valley High School Mock Trial Beats Rival Temecula Valley HS

Congratulations to the MVHS mock trial team, which beat its rival, Temecula Valley HS at the Riverside County Courthouse yesterday, February 26, 2011!

The win puts MVHS into the "Elite 8" or playoff rounds for the mock trial competition. If your child has interest in being an attorney, or just wants a dose of experience perhaps for acting or public speaking value, please feel free to contact my husband, MVHS attorney coach Frank Delzompo. He'd love to help. Email him at Frank@DelzompoHomes.com, or call 951-326-7330. He is trained as an attorney and practiced law with the Marine Corps, both as prosecutor and defense counsel as well as judge for the last six years of active duty.

For more information on the mock trial program in Riverside County, CA, please see my blog post on mock trial on What High Schools Have Mock Trial Teams in Temecula and Murrieta, California.

In his "real life," Frank is a real estate broker helping people buy and sell homes near Camp Pendleton, throughout the Murrieta and Temecula valley areas. He'd be happy to help you with that as well.

We will be submitting the following ad for the program for our son's Murrieta Valley High School Choir. The Murrieta Valley High School Choir's "Chamber Singers" recently earned the HIGHEST HONOR in choral music: an invitation to perform at the National American Choral Association Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Choirs and directors often wait their entire career to be invited and Jaclyn Johnson and the MVHS Chamber Singers have received this tremendous honor, after Ms. Johnson's six years of directing at MVHS. Congratulations!

The Murrieta Valley High School choir program has consistently won top awards at Regional, State and National competitions since Mrs. Johnson took over as director of the program. Cheers!

Voice and Singing Lessons in Murrieta, CA

Our son has been taking lessons for the voice and singing here in Murrieta for just about one year. He turned 16 during that time, and the voice is doing what you would expect it to do: changing. The choir director for the powerful community college choir here told me this is called "vox cambiata." Pardon if I haven't spelled it properly. I asked him for a voice or singing coach closer to me (he is 20 minutes one way in Temecula).

He recommended Mr. Brian Boos, the Choir Director for Thompson Middle School which is a half mile from our home on the west side of Murrieta, for private singing voice lessons, and we've been going weekly ever since. I sit in and listen because it's fascinating to watch the mastery and coaching that goes on in each session. My discovery: the voice and the human body are a musical instrument that a master coach can teach, along with plenty of work by the student outside of the singing or voice lessons. Just last week, Mr. Boos gave our son this "crazy" voice exercise - Mr. Boos is not shy to demonstrate the craziness, so the student feels comfortable going outside his comfort zone! - and immediately after, my son's version of the song they were working on was Extremely improved. I had to capitalize Extremely, it was so much better!

Here is some of Mr. Boos' resume':

"Mr. Boos is a Cal State University of Long Beach graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Vocal Music with an Opera emphasis. He has studied under instructors such as Dr. Charles Edward Lindsley, Ms. Josephine Lott, and Maestro Michael Carson, head of the apprenticeship program for the New York Metropolitan Opera. In addition, Mr. Boos studied string bass for many years under John Shiavo of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Mr. Boos has an impressive performance career including with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Opera Pacific of Orange County, the Long Beach Grand Opera, the Inland Valley Symphony, and "Jekyll and Hyde" and "The Secret Garden" with the Old Town Temecula Theater Group. He was the bass soloist at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, principle string-bassist with the CSULA Music Conservatory and the Los Angeles Jr. Philharmonic Orchestra, and has worked as a studio musician in both vocal and instrumental music in the Los Angeles area. His 'most prized accomplishment is having performed twice as a soloist for Her Majesty, Queen Sirikit of Thailand.'"

What the biography doesn't tell you is how engaging he is in person, how perceptive he is about what a child's voice needs to turn it into a singing instrument. Our son has made leaps and bounds of progress under Mr. Boos' tutelage, and for that I am grateful.

You can call Mr. Boos to set up singing voice lessons in Murrieta, CA, at 951-696-9590. Please let him know how you found him.

Average Home Prices for the West Side of Murrieta, CA

For January 1, 2010, to February 20, 2010, (today), averages follow, excluding luxury homes:

List Price       Ave. Days on Mkt          Selling Price          #BR             Year Built           Sq Ft

$301,959            60                            $287,411            4                 1999                2811

 

Note for buyers: as we close out February, 2010, we are left with only two months to get under contract with a seller, and that sale would have to close by June 30, 2010, for you to qualify for the $8000 or $6500 homebuyer tax credit.  Note that military who were deployed have an extension to June of 2011 (for details, see my blog, Home Buyer Tax Credit for Military Extended - Attention Camp Pendleton, San Diego, Twentynine Palms.

And here is the bonus video of the Golf Driving Range on Washington.  I shot this today on my way back from dropping our 8th grader off at the Thompson Middle School Band fundraiser at the Cal Oaks Bowling Alley.  Enjoy!

 

 

So today started out like any other normal day UNTIL I decided to take the trash out. Yup....someone has to do it!

As I opened the side garage door I nearly jumped out of my skin when I almost stepped on a RATTLE SNAKE!!! Yup....you read correctly...a "RATTLA" as my husband would call them! Let's back up a little....no coffee yet and after this no coffee needed!

Oh my gosh...what am I going to do? Hubby is out of town......so he can't come to my rescue. My Yorkshire Terror, I mean Terrier, is begging to go outside to my rescue and I am feeling trapped in my own home. So what do I do.....I decide to GRAB MY CAMERA! OK I called a neighbor first but I am always thinking about AR and Blogging! Can you say ADDICTED!

I find my camera and head around to the front of the garage only to see he MOVED!!!

HE IS NOW HEADING INTO MY OPEN GARAGE!!!

Yes, I am yelling.....how many times has my husband told me not to leave the garage door open.

So I take a wide running loop around the snake into the garage and hit the garage button and I watch what seemed like an eternity for the door to close. Hoping it landed on the snake like a guillotine....but no such luck! <----------Look at the SIZE of the RATTLE!!!!

Now I come out the front door to witness this intruder heading back towards my BACKYARD! Where is my neighbor...my HERO???

Living in Murrieta CA near the Santa Rosa Plateau we have witnessed lots of wild life....besides snakes, coyotes, owls, red-tailed hawks, bobcats etc.... So you would think I would be use to this. Nope!

Here is my Hero Mark. The first thing he said was "Wow...that's a Big One!"

After poking it a couple of times with a shovel (Kids....Don't do this at home!) the snake decided to hide and crawled up under my beautiful italian cyprus tree.

Mark decided he needed a better tool/weapon so he asked me to keep an eye on it and he would be right back!

No problem I can handle that! Me and the snake weren't going anywhere!

Mark returned promptly with a pvc pipe with tape wrapped around it and a rope down the middle of the pipe. "That's a cool tool" I said. "I just made it" he said.

Ok this guy means business!!!! :)

Believe it or not....Mark didn't kill the snake. Actually I think he was trying to but the darn guy wouldn't give up! So he told me he was going to throw it into the back of his truck and take it to HIS HOUSE to show it to his boys! Fine by me! Who am I to say not to take "my" snake!!!

Here are some more action shots for your viewing pleasure.

"Ok I know he's in there somewhere!!!!"

Now he's got em'! I know he may look small but he is really really huge! :)

And if you've never heard a Rattle Snake RATTLE....I have to tell you it is really LOUD and sounds really really SCARY!!!

Good Bye Rattla...Don't come back soon!!!!

The moral of this story......you tell me?