Obamas hit Hawaii for holiday vacation

President Obama and his family have arrived for their annual holiday vacation in Hawaii.

The president, first lady Michelle Obama, her mother and their two daughters left Washington for the 16-day trip on Friday evening. They arrived in Honolulu early on Saturday morning.

{mosads}The Obamas will spend the holidays at a rental home in Kailua, on the eastern shore of the island of Oahu. The neighborhood is adjacent to the Marine Corps base in Hawaii.

It will be the fifth year in a row the president and his family have spent their vacation in Hawaii, Obama’s childhood home.

According to the White House, Obama is not planning to attend any public events through Sunday, Jan. 5.

He will have plenty of reading to do, however. Obama has said he will review the contents of a 300-page report outlining recommendations to reform the National Security Agency (NSA) and other surveillance plans.

The president is scheduled to announce which of the proposals he supports in January.

Before leaving town, Obama took questions from the White House press corps for about an hour.

In his year-end presser, he defended the controversial NSA data gathering programs and repeated his pledge not to negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt limit.

In reviewing the year, he acknowledged that many of his largest legislative priorities, including passing gun laws and immigration reform, had failed to gain traction in Congress. The rocky rollout of ObamaCare, he said, was his biggest mistake.

See photos of the first family’s Hawaiian vacation here.