On our recent family vacation to Vancouver Island, we didn’t go alone. My girls brought along a couple of new friends to share all the sights and experiences. Please meet the two newest members of our crew, Léonie and Charlsea!
Léonie Belanger-Leblanc hails from Québec City, a place steeped in more than 400 years of history. According to her bio, she loves all of the activities in Québec, like dressing up in her Pioneer Québécoise costume for a visit to the cabane à sucre in the spring, or exploring historic Old Québec city. Léonie loves music and plays hockey at the Atom level at the local arena. She has a pet cockatiel named Piccolo.
Our other new friend is Charlsea who lives on Salt Spring Island, the biggest Gulf Island on the “Wet Coast” of British Columbia. She loves going on adventures like kayaking to Carlos Island, searching for sea otters and sea stars on Vancouver Island, or visiting Whistler. She’s just as happy at home though, gathering produce from her garden or taking care of The Empress, her mischievous goat. One day she wants to be an architect, but for now she’s happy building an eco-friendly treehouse.
Here we are on the ferry travelling to Vancouver Island early one morning. We kept a sharp eye out for whales on our sail across the Georgia Strait, but even though we didn’t have any luck on this trip, we still enjoyed watching the light dancing on the waves and the little islands come and go along the way.
Once we arrived on the Island, we had a long drive ahead of us to get to Tofino. It was totally worth it though. After some fish tacos and a good night’s sleep, we headed out to the beach in the morning. It was a perfect day for kayaking and exploring the tide pools!
This was Léonie’s first time tide pooling, and she was especially excited about discovering all the sea life thriving along the intertidal zone. We saw sea stars, mussels, little crabs, lots of barnacles, sea anenomes, and a few baby sea urchins hanging out waiting for the water to come back in.
We couldn’t go all the way to the edge of the Pacific Ocean without spending some time in Pacific Rim National Park, part of the traditional territories of the Nuu-chah-nulth people. Some of the trees we saw were hundreds of years old!
The next day saw us back in the car and driving down to Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia. The girls and their Maplelea dolls enjoyed people-watching down at the harbour, visiting with family friends, and taking in some of the touristy attractions downtown.
Victoria is also the location of our Parliament buildings so we took the opportunity to tour the buildings and watch the Speaker’s Procession into the Chamber. We even sat in the public gallery to watch our Legislative Assembly in action.
Before we headed home from our West Coast vacation, Kay and Léonie found the giant Canada 150 sign down at the Victoria Harbour and couldn’t resist a little photo opp. C is for Canada!
About Maplelea Girls
These truly Canadian Maplelea Girls are high quality 18″ dolls that capture our Canadian values of friendship and inclusiveness. My girls love their soft, huggable bodies, poseable arms and legs, and eyes that really open and close.
Each Maplelea Girl represents a province or region of Canada: the West Coast, the Rockies, rural prairies, urban Ontario, the East Coast, Quebec, and northern Canada. Each doll has her own unique story, personality, and interests and comes with a starter outfit, keepsake box, and 64-page journal detailing her life story and information about Canada’s culture, heritage, and geography. The journals come in both French and English (Saila’s also comes in Inuktitut) and can be easily expanded with extra sheets that come with other Maplelea accessories.
Maplelea doll clothes and accessories are all extremely well-made and interchangeable between dolls. Maplelea also offer girls’ clothing so your daughter can match her doll! We were glad to have a Maplelea doll tote for each kid (#KM110) to carry their dolls and keep everything organized on our trip. Charlsea and Léonie even had little doll-sized tote bags to match!
We love how the seven Maplelea Girls represent the different regions of Canada, but we’re also really excited about the Maplelea friends line. With 20 more doll designs in varying skin tones, eye colours, hair colours and styles, your child can find a doll that looks like her and create her own unique story journal using provided questions, prompts, and blanks.
Win a Maplelea Doll
I’m really excited to have the chance to give one of my readers their very own Maplelea doll! Enter to win in the giveaway widget below. This giveaway is open to Canadian residents, 18+. All the winner’s entries will be verified.
Click here to check out my other open giveaways and be sure to like me on Facebook!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored conversation. All opinions expressed are completely honest and my own. Your experience may differ.
Taryn because she resembles my niece!
I like Saila because she looks the most like the women in our family.
Jenna is my favourite Maplelea doll but they are all beautiful. Thanks for the super giveaway opportunity!
I love the Taryn doll, she is so cute and my niece would love her.
One of my favourite is Saila . She is very unique and such a pretty doll!
I like Charlsea because I love her clothing.
My girls would love Leonie because they resemble her and because she is from Quebec which is where Mommy and Daddy are from.
I like Charlsea the best…she’s from the West Coast and I can relate to the things she likes to do. I also love her colourful outfit.
Brianne would be a great pick for us as both granddaughters born and living on the Prairies! Although from looking around the Maplelea site, we could make a connection with almost everyday “girl”.
I like Charlsea because she is from our area!
I like Leonie the best but I am sure if I won this contest, I would have to choose Brianne for my daughter. She loves horses and ballet – it’s a perfect match!
My favorite is Brianne, like my little granddaughter, she’s a dancer from the prairies! 🙂
I like Taryn the most because she resembles my daughter.
I like Jenna because she is from our East Coast. With her red hair, she reminds me of our ‘Anne of Green Gables.’ The girls are all beautiful and any one of them would be a lovely gift for some very lucky girl.
http://maplelea.com/scrapbook/product/view/id/654this one is adorable
My favorite Maplelea doll is Chelsea mostly because she looks like my daughter and reminds me of the way I grew up and likes doing the same things that I did as a little girl. I just think I gravitate towards her because I can relate to her and because she is so beautiful.
I love Saila! She would be a great way to initiate conversations about the Inuit culture with my kids 🙂
Alexi Neele , a city girl is nice.
My favorite Maplelea dolls is Taryn, she loves outdoor adventure just like my grand-daughter! Also I love that she wears hiking boots and a shirt adorned with butterflies!
Jenna she has auburn hair like I did when I was little
Léonie is so cute! I love these dolls!
I like the Charlsea doll
My favourite is Taryn because she most resembles my niece.
although I love Saila as well.
I visited Maplelea Dolls and the doll I like is Leonie
My favorite is Alexi..
Alexi the city girl would be my favourite. A girl after my own heart.
Léonie is my favourite. But I really like that you can create your own doll as well. 🙂
My personal favourite is Charlsea because she is from the West Coast just like me – I am a coastal girl through and through. My older daughter loves Saila the best because she is very interested in the Inuit culture. And my younger daughter loves Léonie because she is from Quebec where my husband is from, and she has just started French Immersion kindergarten this fall and is soaking up the French culture so far.
I like Jenna because she reminds me of my red-headed daughter and like my 8 month old granddaughter.
I love Taryn as I think she kinda looks like my daughter. She also said this one was her favourite
I really like Taryn of the Maplelea Dolls
Love Taryn she lives in the Rockies and looks like a little person I know!
I love Charslea, she reminds me of my daughter with her outfit as my daughter loves to pickout unique clothes to wear. I think she would really like her too.
My favorite doll is Jenna, because she’s a highland dancer like my daughter, and she’s also the only green eyes doll, for my green eyed girl.
I love Salia and Alexi. It’s nice to see girls with a bit of colour… altho’ i wish that one of them had curls like our little girlie!
I love the Léonie doll, it has similar features to my daughter and has her hair colour during the summer.
My favourite doll is Brianne since she is from the prairies and a dancer. I think my granddaughter would like a doll who is a dancer just like her.
We like Charlsea the best. She’s from our same area and likes sea otters just like my daughter.