MOM'S CONFEDERATE GREAT-GRANDFATHER

Well, since I was talking about the Civil War yesterday, and about how Decoration Day got invented right after that war, Mom started thinking about her great-grandfather, William Lee.  Mom actually had at least three great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War, all on the Confederate side.  But Mom knows the most about her great-grandfather Lee.  Also she has a photo of him and some of his war buddies, which was taken sometime after...

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HOW MEMORIAL DAY GOT STARTED

Today is a holiday called Memorial Day, when a lot of people will be going to cemeteries to put flowers on graves.  Also a lot of people will have picnics and go camping or boating or to the swimming pool.  Nowadays, Memorial Day is kind of like the official beginning of summer, but that is not the real reason the holiday got invented.Gettysburg National CemeteryThere are more than two dozen towns that claim to be the birthplace of Memorial...

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SOME INTERESTING WORDS

Mom said that maybe we should work on our vocabulary, or at least we should find out where some words come from, like especially words that sound funny.  So I said that would be a good idea, and today I am going to tell you about a few interesting words.FECKLESSIt's pretty easy to see that this word means "without feck."  But you may be wondering what feck is, and what would make you be without it.  Well, it turns out that feck is...

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DWARF HOTOT RABBITS

OMG!  These are the cutest little bunnies ever!  As soon as I saw a picture of one of them, I knew I had to write about them in my blog!  So since I'm supposed to be telling you about different kinds of rabbits anyway, during The Year of the Rabbit, today I'm going to tell you about Dwarf Hotots.First of all, you need to know that Hotot is pronounced "oh-toe" or sometimes "hoe-toe."  Another name for this breed is "Eyes of...

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MOM'S NEWEST SPONSORED CHILD

Way back in February, Mom got a new kid to sponsor because one of her other sponsored kids turned 18, and he graduated from being sponsored.  The new sponsored boy is named Djibi, and he lives in Guinea Bissau.  Right away, you might be thinking, "Where in the world is Guinea Bissau?" Well, I will tell you.  It is in West Africa, right between Senegal and Guinea.  But if you don't know where those two countries are, then you still...

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THE 10 MOST POPULAR CAT BREEDS, by Chloe

I told Piper that she should be writing much more about cats in her blog instead of all that drivel about dogs. Everyone knows that cats are way superior to dogs, and that people would much rather read feline-themed entries.  Piper didn't believe me, of course.  She can be very close-minded about some subjects.  However, she did say that if I wanted to write a blog entry about cats, I could be her guest. So I immediately took her up...

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PAINTINGS IN A CAVE

On Friday, Mom and Aunt LaDene went to see a movie called Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  This movie is about a cave in the south part of France, and it's called Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave.  What's special about this cave is that people back in prehistoric days made pictures on the walls of it.  There were quite a few caves where people drew on the walls, but the Chauvet cave got sealed up by a rock slide, so nobody even knew about it for...

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