Obama, to beat damp Hawaiian weather, takes the kids bowling
President Barack Obama on Monday sought the time honored refuge of any parent dealing with damp vacation weather. Clad in shorts and flip-flops, he took the kids bowling and then bribed them with shave ice.
Marshaling a gang of around 10 children, including his own daughters Sasha and Malia, the president spent several hours bowling and playing basketball with family friends before retreating to a favorite haunt, Island Snow ice parlor in Kailua, for a tasty treat of flavored ice.
“Why don’t you guys go outside so you don’t spill in here,” he instructed the milling children after distributing numerous towering and luridly colored treats, whose exotic flavors included ‘lolo lilikai’ and ‘godzilla grape’. Sasha got a yellow and red shave ice and Malia a tropical blue one.
Picking a dazzling blend of melon, cherry and lemon-and-lime for himself, the president offered to treat the accompanying pool of reporters. This generous gesture was declined by those present, who might have been worried about the mechanics of safely balancing a camera or a note pad at the same time as the ice.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Hugh Gentry (Obama and daughter Sasha order “shave ice”); REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Rainy day on the beach at Kailua Bay where Obama family is vacationing)
Obama Hawaiian Vacation: Beach Day
If it’s Sunday in Hawaii, it must be beach day. Actually if it’s any day in Hawaii, it’s beach day.
But for President Barack Obama Sunday was the first day for a real beach outing since he arrived in Kailua for the presidential Christmas break last Thursday.
Obama and family ventured out to Pyramid Rock Beach on a nearby Marine Corps base where the president stopped briefly yesterday we imagine to scope out the waves considering that Obama is known to locals as a more than adequate bodysurfer.
The traveling press has had no sighting of the president so far today and is waiting at the golf course, so no chance of getting any presidential beach shots to rival the photo from last year (you know the one that I mean).
Aside from athletic pursuits that included a gym workout and basketball game in the morning, Obama had security briefings on the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a passenger plane on Christmas Day and then on an incident today of an ill Nigerian passenger on the same flight, different day (as the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction).
Who knows what the rest of the day will bring. It’s only noon in Hawaii, we’ve been following the president since 6:30 a.m., and haven’t seen him yet today….
The photo was taken Saturday when Obama briefly stopped to check out the beach.
Welcome back to Kailua, Mr. President and the Obama Ohana. I hope the weather improves for the rest of your visit. We are proud you want to spend your holiday with us. Aloha.
Obama Hawaiian Holiday: Tee Time
On the day after Christmas, President Barack Obama had an early morning conference call with national security advisers about the Northwest plane incident, went to the gym with his wife Michelle, went back to his Kailua holiday home and then… it was tee time!
Obama and four friends, yes that’s right a group of FIVE, went for 18 holes on the Kaneohe Klipper course at a nearby Marine Corps base.
Now for non-golf aficionados (like me) a foursome is the customary maximum for a golf game. So five would raise some eyebrows in golfing circles.
But of course, there is also a long-standing tradition that the President of the United States gets to play the game any way he wants.
For example, there are stories that Bill Clinton, when he was president, apparently had a rule that he was allowed as many mulligans — or do-overs — as he wanted (some called it the billigan).
George H. W. Bush apparently liked to golf quickly and frowned upon people playing with him taking too many (if any) practice swings (that comes from someone with first-hand knowledge).
The golf course where Obama is playing has some rules of its own: no muscle shirts, cut-offs, swimsuits, bare midriffs, or slippers (for those who go straight from bed to the green?)
What Hawaiians call “slippers” are what we mainlanders call “flip-flops.”
Obama Christmas Day sighting: handshakes and greetings to military families
“Hey everybody, Merry Christmas.”
That was how President Barack Obama greeted military families in the NCO Mess at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Christmas Day.
It was his second visit of the day to the base which is near the first family’s Hawaiian holiday home in Kailua on the island of Oahu, a 30-minute drive from Honolulu.
In the early morning hours, the president and first lady went to the gym on the base to exercise, and then they returned in late afternoon to give handshakes and hugs to Marines and their families having a Christmas day meal.
For the traveling press, the Friday afternoon visit was the first sighting of the couple since they arrived in Hawaii on Thursday. But there was no opportunity to ask him about the plane incident that the White House considers to be “an attempted act of terrorism.”
The president was notified about the incident between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Hawaiian time (a couple of hours after the morning workout) and was “actively monitoring the situation,” a White House spokesman said.
It was another reminder that presidential Christmas vacations are rarely peaceful and stress free.
Dear Editor,
Very good analysis and an excellent picture of Mr.Obama,i am a real contributor of his many speeches,gathering addresses,conference disclosures,health care reform staunch supporter etc.by comments to many world famous news channels,and in world popular social websites.
I am following his tweets and member of American government website.
Here,he is really interacting with military staff,giving handshakes to his army people,enjoying with them on Christmas eve are showing of his great interests and boosting the morales of military personnels.
Others engagements are all routine ones.,
Must be tired from having signed the Bush Tax Cuts extension aye?