United States President Barack Obama and his family arrived in Hawaii on Saturday (December 21) for a two-week holiday vacation.

The vacation comes at the end of a challenging year for the president. At a press briefing on Friday (December 20) Obama was asked if 2013 was the worse year of his presidency, to which he conceded "we have had ups and we have had downs."

Some of the downs included a botched health care rollout and stalled legislative initiatives.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll puts Obama's approval rating at 38 percent, while other polls put him in the low 40s. This is in the danger zone for a president who is trying to help his Democratic Party gain seats in the mid-term elections next year.

At Friday's briefing Obama described his upcoming trip to Hawaii as two weeks of "sleep and sun" in the island where he was born.

Last year Obama's vacation was cut short as the president was forced to return to the capital to deal with the looming 'fiscal cliff' crisis.

The Obamas' daughters were in the news on Friday, when the president told comedian and talk show host Steve Harvey he's not worried about his daughters starting to date. After all, he's got some help keeping an eye on them.

Malia, age 15, and Sasha, age 12, are "very sensible," Obama told Harvey in a television interview that aired on Friday.

"And the second thing is, I've got men with guns following them around all the time," Obama quipped, referring to the Secret Service detail that is a constant presence around his family.

He and his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, have worked hard to keep their daughters out of the public eye as much as possible during his presidency.