How HOT (or not) is it where you live?

I'm not sure about where everyone else resides but I can tell you right now that the heat here in Houston has been nothing but merciless. Our city has hit record highs for the month of June climbing to 105 degrees today. The last record high for this month was 102 degrees in 1980 and before that it was again at 102 degrees in 1934. But it feels much, much hotter than this, as the heat index, which is a combination of the temperature and the humidity, shows at 110 degrees. Basically that is how it feels to be living in this very hot and unbearable weather right now if you live where I do. We are a family of 4 that loves to do things together, usually outdoors like my husband and I following our kids on their 12" and 16" bicycles as we stroll around the block a time or two, or going to visit NASA Space Center where they have both indoor and outdoor tours of their grounds. Other times we enjoy visiting the Houston Zoo which is free to the public on the 4Th of July, but who's going to want to go with temperatures this high? Our family is the type that likes to 'go'. We are not houseplants and do not want to sit indoors as such! Which is why this horrible heat wave is really cramping our style. Just a few days ago when my husband went with his buddy to play golf he said that the heat had gotten to him so badly that he began to feel light-headed and dizzy for a brief amount of time. This was news to me as Jesse rarely gets sick or feels side affects with hardly anything, including the weather, whether it's pouring cats and dogs outside or there is a very, very bad 'cold front' that flows through our area, or the sidewalk is so hot it can cook an egg. So when he mentioned this to me naturally I became worried. I knew asking him to slow down with his favorite sport wasn't going to leave much of an impact on him and since myself and the kids are also straining under the weather as well I began to search online for those neck coolers I had heard of but have yet to purchase. Do you know the one's I am referring to? If not here is just what one of them looks like and here is the link to this particular product shown; Ultimate Ice Wrap.:

Here are links to more styles of neck wraps that are claimed to cool your body down to beat the heat this summer: Icey Wrap , MiraCool Collar Cooler, Cool Bandanas, Herbal Hugs, Dura Kold Neck Wrap, and the Neck Cold Pack.

The one's my husband and I preferred the most out of all of these we checked out was the Neck Cold Pack and the Icey Wrap, 1) because of their size; they aren't intrusive the way some other neck wraps are such as the Dura Kold Neck Wrap, which we found to look incredibly bulky and uncomfortable even and 2) we both liked these two Neck Wraps because they both appear to be simple to use, they are affordable, and small enough to wrap around our kids; especially the Icey Wrap, which looks to me almost like a mans necktie. The main one we did not like the look of was the Dura Kold Neck Wrap, as it looks like a full neck brace worn by a patient exiting a hospital or something. Not to mention the price of this wrap was expensive at $54 a POP!

Now don't get me wrong; we have not tried any of these products listed above at all. We are just basing all of our own personal information based on what we felt after soley viewing and reading about their products on their websites. Once we actually get whichever product we decide on then we'll know for sure whether or not they 'deliver' the job they claim to. I for one am really counting on them to, as I don't want to be disappointed in finding out a neck wrap we buy only cools us down for a mere 5 minutes before it begins to slack off drastically!

Feel free to view any of the site links I've listed for yourself and by all means if you have any other awesome ideas to keep ones body cooled down during the sweltering summers months, by all means please do share!! Like I said, I don't know how hot it is where you are living but down here, it's plain brutal right now. Even so I try to count my blessings that we aren't dealing with flash floods of high water to drive through like we did this time last year, as this is the beginning of Hurricane Season so anything is possible I suppose.

On that note, if I did have to choose between driving with my two kids in high watered streets with unforseen dips in the road or having to take three cold baths every day to cool down, I would choose the latter. So praise the Lord, My God and Protector, that we are safe and are not having to deal with worse conditions! Thank you Lord! Ephesians 5:20 God is always good!