Geneil's funeral

Today was the funeral of my sweet Aunt Geneil.  The service was wonderful.  Emily, Natalie, Maddie and Lauren spoke.  We laughed and cried, just as I'm sure Geneil would have wanted.

I was so impressed with the girls - their composure, their thoughts, and the way they honored their mother.  The music was perfect, the thoughts spot on and even when the power went out during Lauren's remarks, we were still able to laugh a few tears away.

Geneil's Obituary

Our dear wife, mother, grandmother, sister and aunt peacefully passed away Wednesday, April 4, 2018 surrounded by family after a sudden battle with liver failure.

Geneil was born on May 13, 1960 to Geraldine (Jerry) Eccles and Edward John Huber, Jr. in Salt Lake City, Utah. She married Steven Dee Stapley of Summit, Utah in the LDS Salt Lake Temple on September 9, 1983. They established their home in West Jordan, Utah, where they raised four daughters.

A 1978 graduate and student body officer of Cyprus High School, Geneil went on to play the flute and piccolo in the University of Utah marching band. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music history in 1983.

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Geneil taught her family by example to exercise faith and obedience to our Savior Jesus Christ and endure with hope to the end. She served the church in various callings, including Relief Society President, and her favorite, Primary teacher. Geneil cherished her Prairie 8th Ward “primary kids,” and put much time and effort into preparing her lessons.

Geneil loved being a wife, mother and grandmother. She supported her girls in their love of swimming, cheering them on in countless swim meets. She was known as a stalwart “swim mom.” Geneil delighted in her 3 grandchildren, showering them with hugs, kisses and candy whenever they came to visit.

A talented gardener, Geneil could often be found on her hands and knees weeding in her flower beds, sometimes sneaking to the neighbors’ yards to pull a weed or two.

Geneil was blessed with the ability to make everyone feel important and loved. She had a profound sense of humor and a tender heart. She loved Disneyland and Diet Cokes over crushed ice.

A strong-willed, determined fighter to the end, Geneil exercised great courage to help her deal with many health issues and surgeries over the years. She yearned to be independent and reluctantly accepted, and made the best of, her limitations.

Geneil will be greatly missed, and is survived by her husband Steven D. Stapley, Daughters Maddie (Ben) Wilson, Lauren (Nate) Christensen, Natalie Stapley, and Emily (Brandan) Shelley, grandchildren Cole Wilson, Ada Wilson and Bennett Wilson; siblings Jackie (John) Sudbury, Judy (Karl) Petersen, Cindy (Evan) Wood, Chris (Jerry) Stoker, Dee (Liz) Huber, John (Lori) Huber, Ed (Jennifer) Huber, and Mother-in-law Norma Stapley.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Ed & Jerry Huber, and father-in-law DeeEl Stapley.

Funeral services will be held Monday, April 9th, 11 a.m. at the Prairie 8th Ward building, 7337 South (Grizzly Way) 5150 West. Family and friends may call Sunday, April 8th from 6-8 p.m. at Larkin Mortuary –Riverton, 3688 West, 12600 South, Riverton, and at the ward building on Monday morning from 9:30-10:45 prior to the services.  Interment: Valley View Memorial Park, 4345 West 4100 South, West Valley City.

The passing of Aunt Geneil

Right before we left for Florida, Aunt Geneil was in the hospital, fighting for her life.  Jackie had gone to pick her up to drive her to a doctor's appointment and found her on the floor in her kitchen.  An ambulance took her to the IMC hospital and things just got really bad.  She was very sick with internal bleeding and liver and kidney failure.

Two weeks in the hospital in ICU saw her stablility vary greatly.  At one point, she was stable enough for a liver transplant and then quickly went downhill.  The toxins in her body caused by the liver failure caused significant brain damange and on Tuesday, April 3 Uncle Steve got a phone call late in the night of the type I hope never to receive.  Today, on Wednesday, April 4 the Stapley's gathered together and decided to remove Aunt Geneil from life support.  My mom told me that once all the tubes and machines were removed, Geneil survived about 20 minutes before she took her last breath.

It's pretty surreal to think that she's gone.  The last year or so, we'd become extra good friends.  I've made several bags for Geneil to use in every day life and to take on some grand Disneyland adventures with Natalie.  It's just the saddest thing.

Today is also Grandpa Huber's birthday.  He would have been 89.  And, it's the 6 week anniversary of his passing in February.

I guess grandpa needed to help grandma get ready to welcome Geneil to heaven.

I will miss her so much.

Spring Break :: Beaches, Burns and early morning wake-up calls

Monday was the last day of our trip.  So sad to see it end, but home we must go.

On our last day, we headed back to the beach.  After a lot of debate back and forth, Ross and I decided to try a new beach, St. Pete beach.  We researched the night before and thought it sounded good, the reviews said nice sand, so we headed south.  It was about an hour drive to the beach and once we arrived, paid for parking and headed onto the sand, it was again bad news.  Shells everywhere.  Bad sand.  Super windy.  Not what I wanted.

I whined and pouted a little, but I wanted to go back to Clearwater.  The thought of spending my last day of vacation on a bad beach had zero appeal.  Ross, being a good husband agreed to humor me so we packed up all our stuff and drove the long drive back up north to Clearwater.  We parked in the same place and went to the same stretch of beach we had been at days before.

It was beautiful.  Crowded, but the boys had so much fun and I had a great time relaxing with my husband, watching my kids.  It was pretty idyllic to tell you the truth.  Quiet conversations, lots of laughing and so much calm.

At one point, Wyatt had to go to the bathroom.  He would not pee in the ocean as directed by his father, so the three boys and I trekked the long walk to a very crowded bathroom.  It was there, looking in the mirror, that I realized the extent of the sunburn I'd been curating for a few days and man alive, I was cooked.





We also noticed as we walked the beach that Clearwater beach was just as covered in shells as all the other beaches we'd been to on vacation.  It seemed, apparently, that the small section of beach we were on was maybe the only section of beach on the whole coast NOT covered in sea shells.  Pretty crazy to tell you the truth.  We are truly spoiled with beautiful Southern California beaches and the beaches we visited don't hold a candle to Crystal Cove, California.

I digress.  We had such a lovely time, shells aside.





Once I was literally cooked and we'd eaten all our snacks, it was time to head back to the car and find some lunch.  BBQ chips on the beach weren't going to cut it.  We ate lunch at a hole in the wall Mexican grocery store near the beach and it was fantastic.  Elliott and I each only had 2 tacos - but both of us probably could have eaten four.

After lunch, we were all a little wiped out and sun stroked and it was very late in the day.  We headed back to the rental house to shower and clean up, soak our sunburns in lotion and start packing up.  Out of desperation we ended up at a drive through only Chick-fil-a for dinner and then made it back to our house to hit the hay.  We had an early wake up call.  4 am to be exact.  Early wake-up, early flight, early mini van drop off on Tuesday morning.

Spring Break :: Easter at the Aquarium

Quinn was really nervous about whether or not the Easter Bunny would find us on vacation.  The Easter Bunny had a little help from mom, to leave a small prize for the boys on Easter morning.

First thing this morning was an Easter morning stroll through Safety Harbor.  It was advertised that there was to be a farmer's market, but we never found it.  We did though, walk through some beautiful streets with some colorful (purple, pink and yellow) houses and found the Safety Harbor art museum/activity center.  It was all pretty cool and for "brunch" time on a Sunday morning, very hot and humid.







The only real thing on today's agenda was the Tampa Aquarium and a Dolphin watching cruise.  We also toured a gentrified part of town that was a little scary called YBOR, found Tampa University that had a really cool old building/hotel at it's center, explored Davis Island and the 4 boys in my family devoured a giant 28" pizza.

The aquarium was relatively small and not quite as nice as the aquarium we've got here at home, but we did see an alligator swimming around and watched some sting ray's and lemur's during feeding time.  The boys had fun, there was a really pretty photography exhibit of birds native to Florida and a good gift shop.





We boarded a small ship to go out on a dolphin watching cruise but alas, no dolphins.  There were a few false dolphin sightings that ended up being pelicans diving into the water but it's okay.  We've seen dolphins before and I'm always a fan of a boat ride.  Wind in my hair, smile on my face and lots of really good people watching.  The boys lost interest a bit - tired and hungry and Elliott, even though he was in charge of the camera, was definitely getting tired of hanging out with us and getting really hungry.









The boat cruise was about 90 minutes and we got back, found our car and headed out for a late lunch.  Ross had found a highly rated NY style pizza joint - a buy the slice sort of place right in the heart of downtown by the harbor, the university and the hockey arena.  We explored a little, parked the car and headed in to check things out.  As we were huddled up trying to figure out who wanted what, a kid behind the counter yelled over to us.  He said that they had a pepperoni pizza ready and waiting  - the take out order was cancelled - and it could be ours for $10.  Ross, never being one to pass up a deal walked over to the counted, handed over a ten dollar bill and gave me some water cups before I ever really figured out what was going on.

We then sat down with a whole restaurant of people staring at us and our tiny kids with a giant pizza.  I ate two small square slices.  Elliott ate a couple.  The rest of that 28" pizza was devoured by Ross, Wyatt and Quinn.  This epic feat gave birth to the "Pizza Bro's" and I'm still a little disgusted that they ate the whole thing.  But, in a year or two, we will probably need to order 2 of those monster pizzas.



After that, with full tummies we decided to drive around Davis Island.  It reminded me a lot of Coronado, in San Diego and it was very nice.  The homes were very eclectic and as we scoured Zillow and Realtor.com as we drove around, all were 1 million dollar plus homes. Even the dumpy ones.  Safety Harbor is a community we could afford, if we wanted to.  Davis Island is not.

As we've been touring Florida during this vacation, it's been really nice.  Generally, when we travel we are always overbooked and exhausted because it's either Disneyland, which is 3 or 4 marathon days or it's a quick trip somewhere new, usually for an exhibition soccer game, where we try to cram as many activities as we can into a very small window of time.  It's been so nice this trip to RELAX a little, have a "light" daily agenda and just sort of explore.  It has also been very nice to sleep in.  Every day.  That's always good, too.