Danielle + Keenan + Hadley - Nature Boardwalk Photoshoot
Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Danielle, Keenan and their sweet baby girl Hadley for the first time. We met in Lincoln Park and walked the Nature Boardwalk together, snapping photos along the way. This was Hadley's first official photoshoot, and she nailed it! It's hard to take a bad photo of a baby with the most beautiful blue eyes, see for yourself!
Below is a little bit of Danielle and Keenan's story; they were generous to answer some questions for me to share on the blog.
Tell me a little about you and Keenan, where you're both from, and how you met.
I grew up in Maplewood, MN and attended Drake University to study broadcast journalism (with a side hustle waiting tables at local restaurants). Upon graduation, I aspired to work in local news as a producer and got my first job at WHBF in the Quad Cities. That's where I met my co-worker Kirstin, who would become my future sister-in-law. Kirstin was dating (and is now married to) Keenan's twin brother, Patrick. After two years in the Quad Cities, I moved back to the wonderful city of Des Moines to work at KCCI. It was while working in Des Moines, that I decided to make a fateful trip to Chicago to visit my friend Kirstin. That weekend, I met Keenan. We had a great time checking out some of Chicago's finest sites and had a particularly memorable meal at Portillo's. It wasn't until I took my third TV job in Milwaukee that we started "officially" dating. After about a year, Keenan proposed during a snowstorm in Lake Geneva. We got married in November of 2015, in Minnesota. I now work at WGN as a news producer. Keenan grew up in Clarendon Hills, Illinois. He went to the University of Illinois and studied finance and recently finished his MBA at the University of Chicago. He works for Henry Crown & Company in corporate development.
Tell me about Hadley! How did you come up with that name? And what's she up to at 8 months old?
One of our favorite hobbies is to drink strong coffee and read books. I read The Paris Wife, about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson. I liked the name and stuck it in the back of my head. Meanwhile, Keenan is a Hemingway scholar, volunteering and serving on the board of the Hemingway Foundation in Oak Park. It was only fitting that we named our first born Hadley (and we later eerily found out the two Hadleys share the same birthday)! Hadley is a joy to be around. She is mild mannered, curious about the world and showing a fun-loving personality. She's not quite crawling yet but not too far off. She's also showing a strong love for books, and was recently spotted paging through a book on her own at daycare, "reading" out loud to herself. We love to explore the city, checking out restaurants and breweries. Hadley from just a few days old has been along for the ride! Putting Hadley to bed is like finishing a novel; it can't be done abruptly. But once she's down, we love to watch Survivor or The Great British Baking Show.
What does your ideal Saturday look like?
Our ideal Saturday would start with a walk to one of the nearby coffee shops, followed up with a visit to Barnes & Noble. We'll usually end up at D'Amatos bakery for a meatball sandwich. We also like to go to church in the evening and out to dinner from there. And we love spending time with our friends and family. During football season, we are either traveling to games or planning our schedule around watching the Illini. We are also Chicago Bulls season ticket holders, which makes the seemingly endless winters a bit more bearable, especially if we win the Dunkin Donuts race and the occasional Big Mac!