[Disclosure of Material Connection: Babiekins Magazine received complimentary shoes from Sea Star Beachwear in exchange for this post. Babiekins was not required to write a positive review or feature specific items.]

These happy golden days of late summer are my favorite. The sun this time of year softens to peach and gold, and the shadows dance for extra hours across the warmed earth. Tomato vines are dotted in crimson, rosemary and lavender and sage burst into blossom, and everything’s tinged with the scent of cedar breezes.

As most turn their eyes, now, to school schedules and supply lists, these trailing summer hours are in great danger of being overlooked, hurried through, and trampled upon. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can still carve out time for stillness. We can schedule time for being.

Do you know what is a constant, never tangled up in the tyranny of the urgent, and always — always — there?

The outdoors.

As the flurry of summer vacation and hectic family trips dwindle down, nature is in no hurry. The water is there, steady, as ancient as the dawn of time, lapping at the shore. You can glimpse her through in the towering trees, still, shimmering in the glistening dusk.

While everyone else is off scrambling into the new routine — while our activity-crazed culture prematurely declares summer over —  the outdoors still invites us to linger and spend our weekends en plein air.

We can still gather.

We can still wade, and splash, and share laughter.

We can still be.

There is no seasonal limitation for togetherness.

I like it best when summer can trickle into fall, and we can all enjoy a glorious mingling of sun and shadows, heat and breezes, blossoms and leaves. Contrary to what the advertising hype tries to tell you — and sell you — summer doesn’t drop off into the abyss the moment school starts. There’s still time for Sunday afternoons on the coast, and Saturday afternoons at the pool.

And I don’t want to waste these fleeting golden days with fussy, single-function, wardrobe items. I want clothes and shoes that can bridge seasons and environments, jumping seamlessly from the lake on Sunday to school on Monday (or from Chinese school on Saturday morning to a poolside deck chair on Saturday afternoon, in our case.)

These neoprene espadrilles from Sea Star look like classic Spanish espadrilles, but function like non-skid boat shoes — if such shoes were made out of wetsuits. Honestly, why did it take someone so long to think of this? You can skip right down into the water, and your espadrilles won’t disintegrate. (That toe kick? It’s not made of rope fiber. The sole is rubber. These land-and-sea shoes are totally safe for water, yet totally chic for land life, too.)

Because who has time to change? Who wants to squander even one moment of these precious hours?

Hold on tight, be still, and let the water splash all around.

To shop waterproof shoes for kids, women, and men, click through to SeaStar Beachwear, and snag the perfect weekend-to-weekday, rain-and-shine espadrille. Carpe diem, no matter the season!