Hawaii Vacation Gifts by Double Brush-Hawaiian Gifts & Blog

Hershey's Kisses with Macadamia Nuts Only Available in Hawaii or Online

I was at the Mauna Loa Visitor Center last week picking up more macadamia nut snack packs for our inventory, when I saw something new--Aloha Hershey Kisses with Macadamia nuts! The Hershey company purchased the Mauna Loa company a few years ago, so it was a pleasant surprise to see them merging their two brand lines together.

 Everyone has grown up with or knows about Hershey Kisses chocolate candies, but I had no idea that Hershey kisses had evolved way past the solid milk chocolate candy pieces that I was familiar with. The bite sized candy known for its unique shape and foil wrapping, now comes in many varieties such as rich dark chocolate, and different fillings such as:

Hershey Kisses Special Dark Cherry Cordial Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Chocolate Truffle candy
Hershey Kisses Coconut Creme Filled candy
Hershey Kisses Cookies and Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Dark Raspberry candy
Hershey Kisses filled with Vanilla Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Hugs (milk chocolate wrapped in white chocolate) candy
Hershey Kisses Lemon Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Milk Chocolate with Almonds candy
Hershey Kisses New York Cheesecake Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Rich Dark Chocolate candy
Hershey Kisses Strawberry Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Toffee Crunch candy
Hershey Kisses with Vanilla Yogurt Creme candy
Hershey Kisses Hot Cocoa Creme candy

In 2002 the Hershey company introduced their chocolate kisses in limited editions. Every year the special flavor and foil wrapper is changed. People actually collect these bags of special limited edition chocolate kisses candies!

A new addition is the Hershey's Kisses with Macadamia Nuts from Hawaii. It is not a limited edition, but it is limited in its distribution. It is only sold in the state of Hawaii and at a few online stores. We have no idea if people want them but we have decided to carry them at our online Hawaiian gifts stores. Of course I had to buy and sample the candy first:)

Note: The Hershey Kisses with mac nuts are NOT sold at the official Hershey's site (link below).

What makes the Aloha Hershey Kisses with Macadamia nut chocolates unique is that in the center of the kiss candy is a Hawaiian macadamia nut piece. It is not a full size whole macadamia nut as it would not fit into the distinctive candy kiss shape and size, but it is a piece about the size of a peanut. This creates a delicious winning combination of rich milk chocolate and creamy, crunchy macadamia nuts.

The candy Hershey kiss is wrapped in bright turquoise blue colored foil that says Macadamia Nuts in contrasting yellow gold text. What makes this candy wrapping even more special is that the little tissue flag says "Aloha" on it instead of Hershey's. The kisses candy shape looks like a miniature volcano with a plume of aloha coming out of it.

To find more information about Hershey Kisses candy, visit the official Hershey candies site.

Marriott's Win a Trip to Hawaii Sweepstakes 2009

Marriott  Vacation Club International is sponsoring a great Hawaiian vacation escape to Hawaii. The winner of this trip to Hawaii sweepstakes can choose to stay on the island of Oahu, Maui, or Kauai at a Marriott resort.

GRAND PRIZE HAWAIIAN SWEEPSTAKES:

6 days and 5 nights at the Marriott KoOlina Beach Club on Oahu, OR
6 days and 5 nights at the Waiohai Beach Club on Kauai, OR
6 days and 5 nights at the Maui Ocean Club.

$1,500 Visa Gift Card (which can be used toward airline fare)

$500.00 gift certificate towards shopping, dining, golf, etc.

6 day Hertz Rental Car

Approximate Retail Value  of Grand Prize is $3,710.00

No Purchase is necessary to win, and this Hawaiian Sweepstakes in open only to legal residents of the fifty United States.

Enter Marriott's Win a Trip to Hawaii Sweepstakes here.

This Hawaiian sweepstakes ends on June 16, 2009.

We actively search for and post a new legitimate Hawaiian sweepstakes contest every Sunday. To stay up to date on all of our findings, subscribe to our Hawaii blog via your favorite RSS feed reader or by email.

Check out our current Hawaii Sweepstakes listings here.

New Indiana Jones Movie partly filmed on the Big Island of Hawaii

We recently saw the new Indiana Jones movie--Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was particularly excited to see the new Indiana Jones movie because they filmed on the Big Island last year. See our related posts, Indiana Jones filming a few miles away from our Hawaii home, and Indiana Jones movie begins filming on the Big Island.

Originally the  movie location scouts  were looking for a waterfall and a jungle road that could pass for a South American Peruvian rainforest. The waterfall scene was scratched at the last minute due to the threat of Hurricane Flossie approaching, but the long and exciting jungle road chase scene was shot entirely on the Puna coast (on private property) not far from where we live.

I was thrilled watching the Puna jungle chase scene because I knew the exact location where they had filmed the movie scene! It was near a secret fishing spot that a friend had shared with us and made us promise not to tell anyone. (It was a long hike to get there.) Do not despair though, later in the post I will give you directions to see similar scenery along the gorgeous and rugged Puna coastline--and you can see it all from the comfort of your car.

Another friend told me that they also did the hike to just outside of the privately owned Shipman estate property gate when the Indiana Jones movie had recently finished filming. There was a guard at the gate, and she saw remnants of the filming such as a sign saying, "Filming Crew", movie camera dolly tracks on the ground, a spray painted area on the ground she thinks was for a helicopter landing pad, some newly cleared areas of brush, and boundary marking pins; but no Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, or Karen Allen. Besides not seeing any movie stars, she also did not see any film crew. The place was sadly deserted of people except for the guard.

To view the breathtakingly beautiful rocky coastline of Puna, turn off of the main Highway 11 onto the Keaau-Pahoa Highway 130. Drive all the way down to Kalapana then turn onto Highway 137 which is a beautiful scenic drive up the coast. You will past Kaimu Park, Kahena Beach, MacKenzie State park, Isaac Hale Beach Park, and Ahalanui Country park where you can relax in a natural pool of warm volcanically heated water. The highway turns left onto Highway 132 (Kapoho Road) which leads back to Highway 130 which you started on. You can also drive in the reverse order as it makes a nice loop. Give yourself a few hours to do this drive, as you will probably want to stop and take photographs and maybe have a picnic lunch and swim at Ahalanui park.

Read more details about the new Indiana Jones movie here:

Hawaii's Big Island Stars in New Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Motion Picture and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Wikipedia page. This is the best link for everything and anything to do with this movie.

Half Price Hawaiian Pineapples from Hawaii-Save Over 50% Off!

Fresh and juicy whole Hawaiian pineapples with green crowns attached, can be delivered to any mainland address in 2-3 days! Delicious pineapples from Hawaii are perfect for those backyard summer Hawaiian luaus, company picnics, and other special events. Hawaiian pineapples add that authentic exotic tropical touch to any festive occasion.

Now On SALE! Hawaiian Pineapple Delivery to the Mainland

Why buy a 2 piece box of Hawaii pineapples at regular price with only two pineapples in the box, when you can save over 50% off on each Hawaiian pineapple by buying the 6 piece box? That's right, you can SAVE OVER 50% OFF the price of each pineapple (2 Pack) when you buy a case of 6 fresh Hawaiian pineapples from Hawaii! AND, this is not just a seasonal summer special sale. Pineapples are grown year round in Hawaii, and our special sale half price offer is also good year round!

Pineapples are the universal symbol of hospitality and therefore make great hostess gifts, or used as decor to welcome people into your own home.

What can you do with Hawaiian pineapples? Quite a bit actually. Besides eating the sweet and slightly tart yellow fruit by itself or added to recipes that call for pineapple, the whole pineapple fruit by itself or cut into useful container dishes, make wonderful decorations.

We have written several posts or articles about Hawaiian Pineapples such as:

How to Make an Edible Fruit Bouquet with Pineapple Daisies
How to Make an Impressive Hawaiian Pineapple Boat
How to Grow a Hawaiian Pineapple Plant--Indoors or Out (from the green crowns attached to the pineapples)

Hawaiian Pineapple Recipes
Easy Hawaiian Pineapple Prosciutto Pupus Recipe
Fresh Hawaiian Pineapple Pie Dessert Recipe
My Hawaiian Pineapple Coleslaw or Cole Slaw Recipe

Please let me know via a comment if there is anything else about Hawaiian pineapples that you would like me to write about.

Enter to Win the Aflac Iron Girl Retreat to Hawaii Sweepstakes

Imagine winning a retreat to Hawaii, to the Big Island of Hawaii to be exact. Aflac is sponsoring a new sweepstakes to Hawaii called the Aflac Iron Girl Retreat to Hawaii Sweepstakes.

Aflac Iron Girl events promote health and wellness and provide women with opportunities for competition and camaraderie.

Enter online by August 27, 2008 at Aflac Iron Girl Retreat to Hawaii Sweepstakes.

The winner will receive a Hawaiian retreat from Thursday, October 9, 2008 – Sunday, October 12, 2008, including:

• Coach airfare for two (2) to Hawaii
• 4-days, 3-nights hotel accommodations
• Spa treatments
• Hawaiian luau dinner and show
• Fitness instruction
• Two (2) tickets to both the Ford Ironman World Championship and Welcome Dinner
• $500 spending money

(Approximate Retail Value: $4,875)

To enter other current legitimate sweepstakes to Hawaii, visit our Hawaii Sweepstakes Blog category. Almost every Sunday we post a new Hawaii contest where you can try your luck at winning a free trip to Hawaii!

Don't miss out on the action, subscribe to our blog by email or with your favorite feed reader today!

Access Missing Categories Here

I am sorry to report that Typepad, our blog publisher has been having some issues and five of our most popular blog categories have disappeared from the side bar, but can be accessed here.

Hawaii Sweepstake Contests

Big Island Living

Travel Help

Gift Baskets

Hawaii Activities

You can also use the blogbar to do search terms on our blog, or view our monthly archives. (Both located on the side bar.)

We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to resolve this issue soon.

DoubleBrush.com Has a New Home

After blogging last week about Is Google dancing on my Hawaiian gifts website grave?"--which was about my sudden and huge drop in Google's ranking for the search term 'Hawaiian Gifts", I was thankful to receive invaluable advice from fellow bloggers Sheila and Andy at Go Visit Hawaii.

Andy said that because my URL www.doublebrush.com led to http://shopnow.secureonlinecart.com/estore/f/index.php?sid=528f1599df375516eeb7f1a541dd074b&store_id=1198 which is the home page of our secure shopping catalog, Google may be seeing it as a 302 redirect and that Google doesn't like a site being pointed to a "temporary" site.

Now that I knew what the problem most likely was, I had to figure out a way to resolve it. What I did over the weekend was a thing called domain mapping for my typepad blog which you are now reading. Instead of our Hawaii blog's home page being www.doublebrush.typepad.com, it is now simply www.doublebrush.com

I made a stationary Welcome page post so people can click on a link to start shopping, or choose to start reading our blog posts. I am happy with this solution as maybe now more of our customers will read our blog.

If you have any other suggestions to improve our blog site, please let me know.

I want to end with a big mahalo to Sheila and Andy, a sincere thank you for everything.