Thanks Tracy, your check is in the mail =P

Kidding.

SA is about two hours drive north of here, Houston is about four hours away.

Oh there's also an adorable zoo in Victoria (about an hour away) that I took Michael to recently. Very small, very doable for small kids but bigger kids would get bored.

Hurricane season is from June until November (or whenever we get a cold front). They are serious business, but we're very paranoid on the Gulf Coast and they start tracking them when they're barely a blip in the Caribbean. It's difficult to pinpoint *exactly* where one is going to make landfall, but there's plenty of warning. We were preparing for Ike for about eight days before it hit, for example. Granted that one moved a little slow and it blew north (for me), but they don't sneak up on people like they used to.

The beaches rock on North Padre Island, you can drive right to the water. It's fabulous for lazy people like me. Makes barbecuing on the beach simple!