Facing the prospect of a hot and humid day and feeling overwhelmed by a house full of kids, Noel Ortiz made a smart decision Sunday.

“Let’s split to Clear Lake,” he said.

He called his friend — fellow single-dad Mike Odom — and then they loaded up their cars with seven kids. Ortiz has three children, Odom has two, and they brought two friends.

Watching their charges, ages 4 to 12, as they relaxed on the grass at lakeside, both Mount Vernon men nodded at the wisdom of their decision to get out of the house and into the water.

“Look at us, we’re kicking back,” Ortiz said.

Odom grinned at the thought of not having to think up activities.

“You get enough of them (kids) together, and they entertain themselves,” Odom said.

As temperatures soared this past weekend and humidity hit 73 percent, Skagitonians looked for ways to cool off. Some hit Clear Lake and others converged on Young’s bar, a beach on the west side of the Skagit River in Mount Vernon.

The rest of this week should be cooler, with a chance of rain, said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the Seattle office of the National Weather Service. But beginning next week could bring higher than normal temperatures.

Sunday was cloudy at times and cooler than Friday and Saturday, but when the sun did show its face, the thermometers spiked, hitting 87 degrees in Seattle, meteorologists said.

In Skagit County, the automated weather station at the Skagit Regional Airport, west of Burlington, recorded temperatures hitting as high as 100 Saturday and the low 80s Sunday.

“Anyway you spell it, it was pretty uncomfortable,” Burg said.

Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon saw two cases over the weekend where heat played a factor in two women’s illnesses, said Cindi Vance, Emergency Room charge nurse.

In one case, the combination of working in a hot kitchen for three days and a stomach aliment that caused diarrhea and vomiting brought a severely dehydrated woman to the emergency room. In the other case, a migrant worker Saturday arrived with a dangerously high temperature and low blood pressure. Most severe of all, she wasn’t sweating — a classic sign of heat exhaustion.

“When you get to the point where you stop sweating, that’s dangerous,” Vance said. “You’re not able to cool yourself off.”

In both cases, medical personnel administer fluids intravenously, Vance said. However, the migrant worker’s fever returned Sunday, causing hospital staff to worry she may suffer from an illness.

To prevent dehydration, heat stroke or heat exhaustion, Vance recommended lots of fluids. Drinking 10 glasses of water each day when it isn’t hot and more when temperatures soar, she said. Small children, elderly and people who are sick are most vulnerable to the heat, she said.

“Just plain water is great, apple juice, clear liquids are the easiest, definitely not alcohol, Vance said.

Popsicles and slushies, are a good way to get fluids and cool off, especially for kids, she said.

Avoid being outside during the hottest time of the day, which also is when the ultraviolet rays are the strongest, Vance said. Don’t forget sunscreen, especially on the nose and lips, she added.

Clear Lake lifeguard Tom Fitzbiggon said many parents commonly forget to reapply sunscreen to their children after swimming.

“We see a lot of kids getting really bad sunburns,” Fitzbiggon said.

n Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .