John and Hillary Mizia, as a means of creating a more sustainable lifestyle for our family, started Monkey Hugz in 2008.  Through every job and every journey that we have ever had, family has always proven to be the highest priority for us.  Never was this more present in our minds when our first child, Miles Isadore, was born in 2005.  While we reinvented ourselves to support the family as best we could, it became obvious that we needed to create something as a family that would allow us to spend more time together.

The list of ideas was long.  In fact, we have an actual Idea Book (which we recommend to anyone full of things to do in life) brimming with inventions, creations and thoughts.  A store kept coming back to us a real way to generate income and affect change.  The more we talked, the more we realized our personal dedication and experience in natural living and parenting was an asset.  We began to see that by combining our skills as a sustainability professional and a mechanical engineer with our love of parenting, and desire to inform more parents of natural options, opening a natural parenting and baby store could be the way to go.  Then one day it hit us: let’s just do it.  We talk about it enough; let’s make it happen.  That day in 2007 we bought the domain name, and have been making it happen ever since.  Because our family is growing (our daughter Ellas was born this fall), we decided to start solely on-line, and continue the journey in 2009 or later with a brick and mortar store in downtown Golden, CO.

Hillary still maintains a part-time career as the principal at PriZm Sustainability and speaks at various events about sustainable living.   John is a professional mechanical engineer looking forward to making his own line of wooden toys sometime in the future.  Our latest big green adventure is undergoing a major remodel with sustainability in mind on our home.

What’s in a name?

As we entertained the idea of a store, we tossed around all kinds of names.  Not unlike coming up with a name for a child, naming a store can be an emotional, poignant act.  Monkey Hugz presented itself to us one night in Connecticut while visiting family.  Miles had contracted a stomach bug, and in his sleepy state was clinging on to John for comfort.  His little arms were wrapped around John’s neck, his legs around John’s waist, and his head resting on John’s chest.  He was giving John a monkey hug.  The beauty of the moment struck me, and I knew it was the name of our store.  We traded the “s” for a “z,” as we enjoy a little funky in our lives, and it was the perfect match.