Carnival of Family Life: Memorial Day Edition

Welcome to the Memo­r­ial Day Edi­tion of the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life! Today, Chero­kee Memo­r­ial Park in Lodi pre­semted the Fifty-Second Annual Avenue of Flags, a beau­ti­ful dis­play of Amer­i­can flags that Lodi­ans eagerly anticipate.

Each large flag dis­played rep­re­sents a vet­eran of the United States Armed Forces who has been laid to rest there and, in most instances, is the actual flag which was draped over the veteran’s cas­ket and pre­sented to his or her fam­ily. In addi­tion, a small flag is placed on the grave of each and every vet­eran who has been laid to rest at Cherokee.

When I was grow­ing up in Lodi, vis­it­ing Chero­kee to see the flags on dis­play was a fam­ily tra­di­tion. My father loved to see how the num­ber of flags flown each year increased and, although he rarely spoke of his mil­i­tary ser­vice, was vis­i­bly moved each year when he sur­veyed the rows of flags along the streets divid­ing the var­i­ous sec­tions of the memo­r­ial park.

So there was no dis­cus­sion needed after his death on Jan­u­ary 18, 1992. My mother was eager to honor his wish that the flag which cov­ered his cas­ket and was pre­sented to her dur­ing his funeral, at which he was accorded full mil­i­tary hon­ors for his ser­vice as a mem­ber of the United States Army Air Corps dur­ing World War II, be donated and dis­played each year. Since my par­ents are now both interred at Chero­kee Memo­r­ial Park, I con­tinue the tra­di­tion of sur­vey­ing the pageant of flags each Memo­r­ial Day and proudly locat­ing my father’s flag, which is made pos­si­ble by the pro­gram that the ceme­tery prints and dis­trib­utes as you enter the grounds. I esti­mated approx­i­mately 1,000 flags fly­ing in honor of indi­vid­ual vet­er­ans today.

Included in the dis­play is a field of small flags, each of which rep­re­sents a sol­dier who gave his or her life in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Fam­ily Cook­ing & Recipes

veg­e­culi­nary presents Cook­ing Tofu for Veg­e­tar­ian Stir Fry Recipe posted at Veg­e­tar­ian Culi­nary, a “tasty recipe for good meal!”

Talia presents Home­made Baby Food posted at Back to Basics.

Tris­tan presents High Pro­tein Break­fasts posted at Body And Fit­ness Blog, explain­ing why high pro­tein break­fasts are good for your whole family.

Rani presents Beer Bread posted at Christ’s Bridge.

Fam­ily Crafts & Activities

Kate Edson presents The best gifts in life are free posted at An exer­cise in fru­gal­ity.

Edu­ca­tion

Dan presents Things that Make your Kids Smarter … and Things that Don’t posted at My Dad Blog, dis­cussing “an intrigu­ing, inex­pen­sive method to boosts kids’ test scores, along with an expen­sive rem­edy that doesn’t pro­duce the results you might expect.”

Amy Smith presents Kids Love Learn­ing: Start­ing a Nature Jour­nal posted at Kids Love Learn­ing.

Fam­ily Finance

Jim Wang presents How Secured Credit Cards Work posted at Bar­gaineer­ing.

Jim DeSan­tis presents Self-Control and Sav­ing Money posted at On Line Tri­bune.  A lack of self-control with regard to money is a com­mon pit­fall.  Jim offers three tips to help you spend and save wisely.

Sil­i­con Val­ley Blog­ger presents Dis­cover More Card Offers $50 Cash Back Bonus posted at The Digerati Life. 

The field of small flags rep­re­sent­ing those who made the ulti­amte sac­ri­fice in Iraq or Afghanistan is flanked by large flags, each of which hon­ors a vet­eran whose final rest­ing place is sit­u­ated in the memo­r­ial park.

The Smarter Wal­let presents Trad­ing The Mar­ket: What Mar­ket Trends Are Stock Traders Rid­ing On Recently? posted at The Smarter Wal­let, about teach­ing your chil­dren how to invest in stocks.

David presents Fidelity Rewards Amer­i­can Express Cards posted at Credit Card Offers IQ.  The card pays 2% cash back on all pur­chases, with rewards deposited into a linked IRA, 529 or bro­ker­age account.  

Laura presents How to Plan a Wed­ding With­out Break­ing Your Bud­get posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Michal presents Gift Ideas for Any Grad­u­ate posted at Energy Sav­ing Gad­gets, detail­ing “green gifts are easy on the envi­ron­ment, and will rep­re­sent a spe­cial gift for the hard work and ded­i­ca­tion that made grad­u­a­tion a reality.”

Fam­ily Health and Wellness

Eliz­a­beth presents Healthy Diet: Only Part of the Equa­tion posted at healthy diet. A healthy diet is only “one-half of a healthy lifestyle.”  The other half is appro­pri­ate and effec­tive exercise.

Aparna presents Beat the heat this sum­mer with these ther­a­peu­tic drinks posted at Beauty and Per­son­al­ity Groom­ing.

Organic Baby Wear­house presents Baby Clothes — Why Organic Is Bet­ter For Your Baby posted at Organic Baby Wear­house. Are there actual health ben­e­fits to be gained from organic baby clothes?  Accord­ing to the author, the answer is “yes.”

Jack Schmidt presents Health Insur­ance Can Improve Your Love Life posted at Sec­tor­Matic Money Jour­nal. 

Fam­ily Humor

Howl­ing Mad Jay presents Greet­ings from Dia­per Town posted at The World’s Great­est Blog.

Fam­ily Pets

Jake presents Under­stand­ing the Pack Men­tal­ity of Dogs posted at Dog Train­ing Pet.

Fam­ily Rela­tion­ships & Self-Improvement

J. Cullen presents So Much More Than A Hoop posted at Life’s dewlaps.

GP presents Are you a Social Ani­mal? « Manely Mon­tana posted at Manely Mon­tana, set­ting forth “the 10 com­mand­ments on being a social animal”

Edwin Lukins  presents The Most Impor­tant Career posted at The Pros­per Mag­a­zine, a look at “work life balance.”

Mike May presents Easter Mem­o­ries posted at UpbeatBrain.com.  “Mem­o­ries of my grandma and choco­late bun­nies give me a smile every Easter,” Mike writes.

Thank you to all who par­tic­i­pated in and sup­ported this edi­tion of the Carnival!

Click here to sub­mit a post for next Monday’s edi­tion of the Car­ni­val by 7:00 p.m. (noon) Pacific Time on Sun­day, May 1, 2009. Be sure to include both the perma­link to and rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion about your entry. Should you have ques­tions, the Car­ni­val guide­lines can be reviewed by click­ing here before sub­mit­ting your post.

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Tech­no­rati Tags: Blog Car­ni­val, Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life

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