Tales from the Trail

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)

“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.

We know that President Barack Obama and wife Michelle went for an early Christmas morning gym workout at a Marine base near their Hawaiian holiday home in Kailua. But we didn’t actually see them.

The press van was in a motorcade of about a dozen black vans that left near sunrise to make the short trip to the gym. So there’s the evidence that the First Couple did in fact go work out. But none of us in the traveling press actually saw them. (The last sighting was when they landed in Hawaii yesterday)

While they worked out (we imagine weights, treadmill, bicycle, and any other equipment on hand), the press went to the McDonald’s on base (quite the opposite of a workout) where the trash receptacles were labeled  “Mahalo” instead of “Thank you.”

How much better could it get?

President Barack Obama won a hard-fought victory on his signature domestic issue — healthcare reform — first thing in the morning with the Senate vote and then he left the frozen tundra of Washington, D.C., (we’re talking about the weather) for the balmy tropics of Hawaii.

A sweet start to the Christmas holidays for the first family.

Air Force One landed at Hickam Air Force Base on the island of Oahu (even some of the Secret Service agents on the ground were in Hawaiian shirts) and everyone in the first family was greeted with the traditional lei around their necks.

Then it was off to their Kailua home, past lush green rolling hills, with gawkers stopping to take pictures, wave, call someone, flash the “hang loose” sign and essentially give the Obamas a warm welcome.

President Barack Obama’s “winter White House” has a few perks that even the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can’t claim. Purple taro chips, for one. A breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, for another.

The Obama family is renting a $4,000-a-night Hawaiian home in Kailua, on the windward side of the island of Oahu. Centered on a lagoon-like pool, it’s got plenty of open space and privacy for Malia and Sasha. ABC’s Good Morning America offered a video tour of the place, which is on the market for $8.9 million.

Kailua beach is one of the most gorgeous in the Hawaiian Islands, though less reliably sunny than Waikiki. It’s also familiar to the first family: they stayed here last year after the 2008 elections. They also are renting two neighboring houses for family and friends.