Beat the heat! Keep cool during summer

MEREDITH VIEIRA, co-host: Back at 8:20, This morning on TODAY'S FRIDAY WHIP , cool ways to beat the summer heat .

MATT LAUER, co-host: That's right . We've lined up four experts to share their tricks for staying cool, starting with your home. George Oliphant is the host of LX .TV 's " Open House ." Hey, George . Good morning.

Mr. GEORGE OLIPHANT: Good morning to you, Matt.

LAUER: Let's start with air conditioners . We love them. And you've got a way to let them do their job without fighting the heat.

Mr. OLIPHANT: Right, exactly. You want to keep your air conditioner out of the sun, so what you have is a little housing right here, basically it's just a metal housing, it's got a little bit of Styrofoam in it, that absorbs all the heat and lets the air conditioner do its job of cooling the house .

LAUER: Slides right on over the back of the air conditioner .

Mr. OLIPHANT: Slides right on. It's safe, it attaches. You can hook it into the house , but you don't have to worry about it falling off.

LAUER: When you've got an air conditioner going in your house , a good thing is to circulate that cool air .

Mr. OLIPHANT: Yes, exactly. People think, `Oh, I have an air conditioner , I have a fan,' use both, air conditioner and fan in conjunction. Use the fan to circulate the air around the house . A great idea is also to get ceiling fans . If you can put them up in your family room, your bedrooms. And then on all ceiling fans they have a switch, you want it counterclockwise in the summer so that it sucks the cold air up around the room, and in the winter you want to switch it so that it's clockwise so that it pulls all that hot air and it pushes it down into the house .

LAUER: Good to remember. I'm sure a lot of people don't do that. These are programmable thermostats. How much are these going to cost us?

Mr. OLIPHANT: These are going to cost us, you know, about 65 bucks for one of these and they're going to save you about 50 bucks a month. So they're pretty much a no-brainer. Everybody should have a programmable thermostat in their house .

LAUER: Because they'll keep the house cool while you're there, but when you take off, they ramp things down.

Mr. OLIPHANT: Exactly. When you're home in the mornings, when you're home after school or after work, house is nice and cool. But when you're not there, they're, you know, they're not working, the house -- you're saving yourself an energy bill.

LAUER: And people don't think about it.

Mr. OLIPHANT: They never think about that.

LAUER: Use -- yeah -- use your blinds and your shutters.

Mr. OLIPHANT: Use your -- close your blinds before you leave to work, that's going to keep the sun from warming up your house . It also protects -- if you have any leaks coming in through your windows, you can get weather stripping, you can get caulk, but just having a good solid shade, a good solid curtain, it's going to protect your house .

LAUER: Stay cool , George .

Mr. OLIPHANT: Always.

LAUER: Thank you very much . Let's head over to Meredith .

VIEIRA: All right, Matt. Thank you very much . And what if you are not in your house and you want to stay cool ? Lifestyle expert Robyn Moreno is here with some cool gadgets. Robyn , good morning to you.

Ms. ROBYN MORENO: Good morning. How are you?

VIEIRA: Can I start with this cooling pad that actually goes right inside a hat.

Ms. MORENO: This is really neat. So this is from a company called MiraCool . And this was actually made for construction workers so they could stay cool in the heat. And so it's a gel that you actually freeze overnight.

VIEIRA: Uh-huh .

Ms. MORENO: And it stays cool for about an hour, so you actually can tuck it into your baseball cap .

VIEIRA: Which is great.

Ms. MORENO: Which is great. So if you want to go running, if you want to go to your kid's baseball game. And it's -- you can use it like 1,000 times. It's $17.

VIEIRA: And if you're outside working around doing like lawn work or whatever, you recommend these bandannas, they're cooling bandannas.

Ms. MORENO: So these bandannas are amazing. A lot of people use these guys. Basically all you do is you put them in cold water for about two minutes and they -- you put them on pressure points, so you put them around your wrist, around your neck, around your head and they keep you cool for basically the whole day because it distributes the -- distributes the coolness throughout your body. So again, really amazing.

VIEIRA: OK. If you're going -- heading to the beach, do what I think Martha Stewart does, bring along this facial mist.

Ms. MORENO: Yeah, these are really lovely. They're from Mario Badescu . And so they have this mist, which would be fun to do is you could put it in your cooler and it has aloe and rosemary, so you just spray it on and instantly you become cool.

Ms. MORENO: And if you happen to get a sunburn, that's OK, they also make a cooling gel, and it has menthol, so again, really cool.

VIEIRA: Really nice...

Ms. MORENO: Yeah.

VIEIRA: ...and soothing. This is my favorite. This is the Cool Serve Square tray to keep your food cool when it's outside, which is great.

Ms. MORENO: So this is going to be the best thing to ever happen to moms so they don't ever have to worry about their food going bad during picnics.

Ms. MORENO: And so basically it's made by The Pampered Chef , and what they do -- what you do is you get these inserts and you refrigerate them or freeze them overnight and they keep your food cool for about six hours outside.

VIEIRA: That's fantastic.

Ms. MORENO: It is fantastic. And they come sort of in mix-and-match. And so you can, you know, put eggs and all kinds of things 15 different ways to serve food.

VIEIRA: And very, very quickly, the cool pillow, which is that?

Ms. MORENO: So this is by Magniflex . And basically -- The New York Times said this is one of the best pillows to keep you cool. A hundred dollars at citisleep.com.

VIEIRA: OK. Robyn , thank you very much .

Ms. MORENO: Thank you.

VIEIRA: Now let's go upstairs to Natalie .

NATALIE MORALES, anchor: Meredith , thank you. So how do you keep the kids happy and cool in the summer sun ? Elizabeth Werner is a toy expert for us at todaymoms.com. Elizabeth , good morning.

Ms. ELIZABETH WERNER: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MORALES: Good thing to do is keep the kids busy with like a water slide type thing.

Ms. WERNER: Exactly.

MORALES: And you've got one right here, the "Toy Story 3."

Ms. WERNER: Yes. Yeah, exactly. " Toy Story " just came out. And this is To Infinity and Beyond water slide . It's so long, a lot of fun. Right now we have it shortened for the studio. Water squirting through there, and when they put aqua goggles on, it's 3-D as they shoot through the tunnel.

MORALES: Oh, cool. And it's a 2010 Slip N Slide version, so even better. Great.

Ms. WERNER: Very fun.

MORALES: OK.

Ms. WERNER: Exactly.

MORALES: Water guns.

Ms. WERNER: We love super soakers .

MORALES: Kids on the block love this.

Ms. WERNER: The Rattler super soaker . And this one.

MORALES: Look at this. Woo!

Ms. WERNER: The Bottle Blitz. We can squirt these.

MORALES: That's pretty good. OK.

Ms. WERNER: These are a lot of fun for the kids. And parents, of course, are always loving them, too.

MORALES: Good stuff. OK. And then you can have under-the-sea fun indoors, too.

Ms. WERNER: Crayola Color-Fillz. These are great. This is a way where kids can make their own mosaics. Around the back there's a color code, they're going to put in the Model Magic .

Ms. WERNER: At the end they have a piece of artwork they can hang up.

MORALES: Beautiful. Great idea.

Ms. WERNER: And it's 3-D.

MORALES: And last but not least, one of these little gadgets.

Ms. WERNER: Yes. These are CDI novelty fans.

MORALES: Cute.

Ms. WERNER: Our kids are going to have all their favorite little characters on them. They have lights that light up inside and a fan. And this is a lot of fun when they're sitting in bed, reading, you know, take it to camp with them.

MORALES: Great. Perfect.

Ms. WERNER: Adorable.

MORALES: Elizabeth Werner , thanks so much.

Ms. WERNER: Thank you.

MORALES: Good stuff. Let's turn it over to Tamron Hall .

TAMRON HALL reporting: All right. Thank you, Natalie . There's nothing better than an ice- cold beverage . Kim Haasarud is the author of " Drinks." Good morning, Kim .

Ms. KIM HAASARUD: Hi. How are you?

HALL: Good to see you. I'm good, I'm good. I'm better after I have one of your drinks.

Ms. HAASARUD: Good. Yeah. Well, this first one is -- it's a watermelon basil frappe.

HALL: Uh-huh .

Ms. HAASARUD: I actually have a margarita version of this one in the book. But it's made with fresh watermelon...

HALL: Uh-huh .

Ms. HAASARUD: ...which is perfect for the summer. Lime juice. A little bit of watermelon syrup that you can buy online.

HALL: OK.

Ms. HAASARUD: And a basil leaf.

HALL: Basil there. OK.

Ms. HAASARUD: Yeah. So one little quick blending technique is, if you want to blend the ingredients, blend the -- blend the first without ice.

HALL: Right. OK. And then...

Ms. HAASARUD: And then you add a little bit of ice.

HALL: ...put the ice in quickly.

Ms. HAASARUD: Right.

HALL: OK.

Ms. HAASARUD: This will actually keep the drink colder longer.

HALL: All right. I'll pour this while you move over to the next one.

Ms. HAASARUD: OK.

HALL: What's the next one?

Ms. HAASARUD: This next one is a chocolate narcissa. I have to warn you, you have to be a true chocolate narcissist to really like this drink.

HALL: And I am.

Ms. HAASARUD: Yeah. You can actually start by putting a little bit of chocolate syrup around.

HALL: Mm-hmm. And you're big on syrup, you like syrup.

Ms. HAASARUD: I'm big on syrups, yes.

HALL: Mm.

Ms. HAASARUD: Flavored syrups.

Ms. HAASARUD: Chocolate ice cream . Everything chocolate. Oreos.