I wouldn't use Linode. Not that I don't love Linode but for a simply family blog it's total overkill. I use DigitalOcean for a couple of smaller sites and have no problem with them (and costs $6/month as opposed to $20/month with Linode).

I also use Jekyll which is a static blog generator. I use Bitbucket to directly edit the pages and posts on my blog and when I commit a change my blog is automatically regenerated via service hooks. That might be a bit more setup than you want but it works nicely and is easy to maintain.