Faro So Far

We have already been living in Faro for three full months. Somedays I feel as though I just arrived yesterday and other days I feel like I have been living here for years.

I am enjoying how safe I feel in this community. So far I haven't seen a single drunk person walking down the road. Quads slow down when they pass you on a trail and vehicles pull right over when they pass you walking on the streets.

I am pretty sure that everyone in town knows who Hunter is, but not as many know who we are! His morning babysitter takes him out for walks and goes out visiting with him. What a social butterfly we have. The boy gets lots of love from every person we pass and the children in town love talking to him as well. We have another baby sitter who is 11 and Hunter adores her. Much of the community is made up of retired folks who once they see Hunter tell us all about their grandkids (and great grandkids!). There are not a lot of young families here in Faro, and I think the retired folks like having us here.

Yesterday we went out for a walk and it ended up taking us out of the house for four hours. In that four hours of beautiful sunny weather we only saw 12 people and 5 of those were at the store! I guess for a lot of people this kind of quiet would drive them mad, but I really love it. Communities like this (Kugluktuk was the same), allow you a lot of family time. There is no commute to work, shopping doesn't take all day, people keep an eye out on the kids, etc. It doesn't bother me that there is only one store in town; I would rather that with once a month trip to Whitehorse then spending hours a week at stores. And I still order online here like we did up north.

My only complaint is the state of many of the playgrounds. Faro is trying to sell itself as a great family place, which I believe it is. However, the playgrounds are in various states of disrepair. We bought our house based on a number of factors, but a big one was that we have a large playground just past our backyard. But the paint is chipping (not sure how old the paint is- lead??), this weird blue dust comes off of the swings and gets onto everything, the grounds need to be raked, new sand added, etc. Other ones around town have chains that are dangerous, bolts coming out of benches (careful where you sit!), broken glass, etc. I think I am going to write the town a letter asking who is responsible for the upkeep of these playgrounds and see if anything can be done. It is also only the start of summer, so who knows, maybe they have a maintenance person who will be fixing them up. I will keep my fingers crossed!

There is quite the golf course here as well. If anyone out there likes golf there is a beautiful grass course that runs all through town. Very unique. While I am not the type to golf (more the drink beer and race golf cart type), it makes town look nice. There are also a lot of trails around town! We have been exploring a bit, but we need to buy a backpack carrier for Hunter. Our super stroller can only go so far! We had to go off trail when we hit a peat spot that was getting deep because of the quad traffic and Hunter was hilarious. Matt was pushing the stroller through the bush and it was pretty rough. Hunter had both hands on the side of the stroller with a death grip on them! Too cute. I had been hoping that we could buy a new set of quads this year to replace the ones we sold up north, but I think the earliest we can look at getting some is this fall, but probably more like next spring. Sigh...

Matt is enjoying work at the health centre here. He is booked until the end of August so far. I like the hours- he starts at 8 and is off at 4:30. That extra half hour in the afternoon seems like it makes such a difference. I am still working a few hours every morning and I am just finishing up my tutoring at the school. We still have not hooked up the satellite, but have borrowed CSI season 1 and 2 and have been watching them in the evening in our cool basement.

Well I am sure that is enough rambling to bore you- so here is another cute picture of the reason you probably came here today: