This episode is different.

It isn’t just another story from our lives.

And it definitely isn’t the reason we ever imagined we’d be traveling to New Zealand together.

We went to be with our family after losing our beautiful cousin, Isabella Giorgio Beirne, far too young.

For Mike, New Zealand is a place he’s been many times.

For Brittni, it was the first time.

But this trip was unlike any trip either of us had ever taken.

We went to show up.

To be there for our family during the hardest time of their lives.

To celebrate Bella.

To cry.

To laugh.

To hear stories about her we had never heard before and spend time with our family and friends who knew and loved a whole other side of her.

And somehow, in the middle of one of the saddest reasons to travel across the world, life kept happening around us.

We explored New Zealand.

We met incredible people.

We ate our way from city to city.

We laughed harder than we expected to.

Brittni developed a completely unnecessary obsession with Sonny Angels. (Thanks Maddy + Zoe)

And we made memories on a trip we wish we never had a reason to take.

Because grief is weird like that.

You can be completely heartbroken and still laugh.

You can be celebrating someone while desperately wishing they were there to celebrate with you.

You can experience something beautiful in the middle of something incredibly painful.

This episode is for Bella.

And for the people who loved her most - her dad, Simon, her mum, Hayley, and her beloved brother, Lachie.

For the family who traveled across the world to stand beside them.

For the friends who filled the room with stories, laughter, tears, and memories.

And for everyone learning how to carry Bella with them in a world that looks different without her.

It's about grief.

It’s about family.

It’s about showing up.

It’s about celebrating someone instead of only mourning them.

And it’s about being reminded, in the most unexpected way, just how precious life really is.

We hope that by the end of this episode, you feel like you got to know a little piece of Bella too.

Because this isn’t an episode about how she passed away.

It’s about how beautifully she lived.

And how many people will continue carrying her with them.

This one is for our Guardian Angel Isabella Giorgio Beirne.