Where Are They Now? — Jennifer Whittaker (Patterson)

I started feeling old when someone commented that my grandbaby was darling. It was our newest daughter that was born in February. There are days that I do feel old and other days that I shouldn’t be old enough to have a child who is driving and dating. I chaperoned one of the dances (don’t worry it wasn’t one that my son went to) and the kids thought we were pretty cool because we knew the words to “their” songs. You know, songs like Mony Mony. My life is pretty normal, nothing too out of the ordinary, but here is a rundown of 20 years.

After graduation I went to BYU, double majoring in ballet and clothing design. They obviously don’t have any relationship to each other but were two things I loved. I had been diagnosed with osteoarthritis when I was 17 and found that after a year I couldn’t continue with my dancing to the level needed for a degree. I took a job working with disabled children and loved it, so I learned sign language and changed my degree to special education.

I married Robert Patterson (MVHS 85) in 1990. We were told that we wouldn’t be able to have children of our own but to our surprise we had our first child 16 months after we were married. Unfortunately the rest didn’t come as easy. Rob worked for WordPerfect and I got to be a stay at home mom. We did some overseas traveling (it was easy with one baby) and then decided to expand our family. This didn’t come easy. This became our focus for the next fourteen years. After seven miscarriages we were able to have four more children.

Rob is now a director for NuSkin and I run a private preschool in my home. I enjoy taking pictures, sewing, and playing the piano but most of all I LOVE being a wife and mom. We’ve lived in Orem all but the first year of our marriage and we love it here. We love the seasons and the mountains and it accommodates our interests of camping, mountain biking, backpacking and skiing. We also enjoy our season tickets to the BYU football games where we sit on the front row of the north end zone. We even found a BYU shirt that fit around my pregnant belly.

My greatest accomplishment is my family so here is a Christmas card rundown of where all my time goes. Jason is 16. Driving and friends are on the top of his list. He plays soccer for Mountain View. He is certified to ref soccer games and helps run the summer soccer camps for Orem City. I can’t believe he’ll be a junior next year. That was my favorite year of high school! Hannah is 12 and is a beautiful ballerina. She has danced with Utah Regional Ballet, BYU, and the SCERA Theater. That’s about all she does. People say she looks like me and we are a lot alike in personality too. Emma Lee is 7. She is the precocious one of the family. She walked at nine months and spoke full sentences at 18 months. That should have been a sign of what was to come. She reads on a fifth grade level and talks as if she’s twenty. She loves life and doesn’t waste a minute of it. Our sweet little Spencer would be 2 1/2. He unexpectedly died at birth. What a journey we’ve been on trying to deal with this. Camilla, four months, was our sweet little Valentine’s Day surprise (she was due in March). She has been such a healing joy for our family. Her smile is infectious and the other children absolutely love her.

My daily life consists of scrubbing the toilets regularly and keeping up on the laundry. I love spending time with my kids so summer break is fun for me. I realized that I probably shouldn’t be nursing a baby and renting a tux for prom the same day. But this is how it worked out and I love it!