Once a year my family would travel out to Colorado, but it wasn’t just a vacation for us—it was a family tradition that kept getting handed down. My grandmother used to take my dad out there, showing him the mountains and the little towns and the kind of quiet that makes you breathe deeper without even realizing it. The stars that shine so much brighter when there's no city lights to block them out. Years later, he took my older sister, wanting her to see the same views that shaped him. And then when it was my turn, he brought me and my baby sister, like he was stitching another layer onto a story that was already being told long before we showed up.

On one of those trips, someone gave me a stuffed marmot, and it turned into this hilarious, sweet little family legend. Apparently I would have full-on, at-length conversations with it in my crib, like it was my tiny best friend and I had things to discuss. My family still talks about it, and the marmot became the running joke that followed us through the years, showing up in stories, getting mentioned like it was another member of the family, and instantly taking us back to those early memories.

Not long after, we moved to Colorado as a family, and it stopped being a place we visited and became a place that held us together.

When I eventually left, I didn’t want to leave it behind—not the mountains, not the memories, not that feeling of being part of something bigger than a single moment. So I got the marmot tattooed, because it carries all of it for me: Colorado, my family, and the tradition that connected us through the years. That’s why my business is named after it—because it’s personal, and it’s a reminder of where I come from and what I’m building.

And because is there any creature more fierce than one of these little guys... I don't think so.

So join me and climb high like a marmot.