One of the goals of Woo has always been to make wellness feel a little less overwhelming.
Not another list of things you should be doing. Not something that requires a full life overhaul. Just real, doable ways to feel a little better in the context of your actual life.
And summer feels like a good place to come back to that.
So instead of trying to do everything, I’ve been thinking about what actually matters. What’s easy to implement. What shifts the feel of a day without adding more to it.
I kept coming back to a handful of simple things—nothing extreme, nothing hard to pull off, and not specific to one type of person or lifestyle. Just small, intentional choices that can work for almost anyone. These are the four (very random) things I’m focusing on this summer.
1. The Sun is Not the Enemy
Honestly, I’ve never been super sun-averse. We use sunscreen when exposure is high and we plan to be in it for a significant amount of time but since we do a lot of swimming at our personal pool I rarely use it at home and we’ve avoided burns easily. While I’m absolutely a sunscreen proponent, I’d say in moderation and I’m still working to find the right one (will keep reporting back).
What’s working: Active Skin Repair SPF 50 (EWG Verified) I wore this on a recent trip and LOVE it. It’s lightweight, has no smell, great coverage, and hydration.
Another thing that’s working: ATTITUDE Sunly After Sun Care Stick (EWG Verified) for cooling burns. While my face and body handled the heat on my trip, my feet did not since I completely forgot to lather them up! I was really glad I had the Sunly Stick as an alternative to aloe vera. It’s EWG verified and you can stick the sticky, goopy aloe mess.
What I’m still searching for: The best all-over sunscreen. I’m still having a hard time letting go of aerosol sunscreen—I know, I know — it’s not the best option (especially with kids breathing it in), so I’m on a bit of a mission this summer to find something I actually love and that works for everyone. Because I really don’t want five different sunscreens for five different people.
If you’ve found one that checks all the boxes; clean, easy, goes on well, and your kids don’t fight you on it—I want to know!
2. Rethinking Chlorine (without skipping the pool, duh!)
It’s not just chlorine, it’s what it turns into. When chlorine mixes with sweat, sunscreen, and everything else in the pool, it creates byproducts (like chloramines) that can irritate skin, eyes, and even the lungs. That “pool smell”? That’s actually those byproducts.
Avoiding pools is not an option here in Houston, and I mean come on that would be so lame, but summer means higher exposure, so I’m learning more about this and taking a couple of simple steps.
Ideally Rinse before + after swimming (this will be a hard one for us)
Shower when you are done (my kids like to do this anyway so yay us!)
Might try out a hypochlorous acid spray (HOCl) to calm skin if I have a kid whose skin is reacting
Nothing extreme—just reducing the load and helping the body recover.
3. Skill-Based Camps > Time-Fillers
Last summer, I found myself taking mental notes on the camps my kids actually loved, not just the ones that filled time, but the ones that stuck.
What stood out most? They were drawn to skill-based camps. The kind where they walked away feeling capable, confident, and excited about something new. It was genuinely fun to watch them light up over skills they could keep using long after the week ended.
My oldest did a Survival Camp, and he’s been using what he learned all year; which, to me, says everything. So this summer, I’m flipping the approach a bit. I’m asking each of them what they want to get better at or learn more about, and we’re following that thread.
Right now, here’s what we’re exploring (very boy-heavy over here):
Outdoor/nature-based skills
Woodworking
Fishing
Cooking
We’re really lucky to live in a city like Houston—there are so many great summer camp options. I’d love to pull together a Wellness + Skills-Based Camp Guide (we’ll see if I can make it happen in time), but in the meantime, some people already do this really well. Here are a few guides worth checking out:
4. Fire-Based Cooking
This one may or may not stick, especially in the heat of July and August, but we’ve started experimenting with cooking over a fire, and it’s been such a fun, unexpected win.
It’s turned into a great skill-building activity that naturally brings the kids together—there’s teamwork, problem-solving, and the added bonus of learning something real. We’ve been using a simple metal fire pit, adding a few outdoor cooking tools, and making easy breakfasts together once a week.
A few of our new outdoor cooking favorites:
I’d love to build on it from here and maybe turn it into an evening thing with simple dinners over the fire, and eventually let the kids invite friends for a night of food and fire.
Outside of a few trips, this is it for me this summer*. Nothing complicated, nothing that adds pressure, just a few simple, doable things that make our summer intentional and a little cleaner than the last.
What are your plans for the warmer months?
*Not noted, the everydays of life that includes dishes all day, cleaning, playdates, writing Woo, sibling arguments, probably an illness or two, bandaids, fitting in date nights, working out, sweating in the Houston humidity, work trips for Dad, etc. Just needed to make sure I still sound like a real human :-)
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