Daniel's Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dan! You share a birthday with Kobe Bryant, Gene Kelly, Barbara Eden and Keith Moon. I could not find a picture of you but Harold Ramis is pretty close. For the record the top 3 Who songs are; 1. Pictures of Lily 2. Marianne with the Shaky Hand 3. I'm a Boy.  Happy Birthday Dan!

This property is undeROFFer

Julia and I have found our ideal home in Raymond Terrace! It has palm trees, a swimming pool, a cabana, a tennis court and plenty of room for us to host Roff Christmas for many years to come. Our offer has been accepted although there was apparently some trouble with a previous party who had also offered. It has five acres and we're thinking of getting Lamas (or Alpacas) to keep the grass down, particularly on the tennis court.
It will be great to have Stu and Marianne as "neighbours" in their modest house in Redhead and we expect regular visits. Thanks to Alaine who is visiting us in Melbourne at the moment to give us the heads-up!

Malawi, Olympics!

Hello! Jake recently insinuated that all i do is travel, and not work. This hurt, coming from a teacher. However, in efforts to prove him right, and due to some quirky norwegian customs (you are "strongly encouraged" to take 3weeks off in a row over summer) i was able to get a really good summer holiday in this year!!

First stop was Malawi. It was amazing, really pretty, mainly because basically the whole country is within sight of the lake. I went to visit a friend who is teaching down there at the moment, and thought it was a great excuse to go. Ive never been to africa before, so it was really interesting. Actually, if anyone is interested in going to Africa for the frist time i would strongly recommend Malawi, its safe (as in, it has nothing that anybody wants, so there is no need to have civilwar) and the people are really welcoming and interested in seeing that you enjoy the country. It was awesome to see the way in which people live without what we would consider "normal", and we had a blackout for 3days which meant no power and no water (the water pumps also failed, and we were living up a hill) but its amazing how quickly you adapt. More swims in the lake was pretty much the solution! It was fun to play "the minibus game". This is a game that everyone plays, whereby you get a 9seater minibus and see how many paying customers that you can squeeze into the space. The record when we were there was 22 in one van. I had my backpack balanced on my legs, and a kid climbed up on top of it to sleep. There was also the bus ride (9hrs, 3 of which were spent standing, no toilet, no stops) where there were literally live chickens on the bus. Anyway, we stayed up in the north, on the lakeshore, and spent most of the days hiking, checking out little towns around the area, or staying in awesome beach resorts along the shore on the way back to the capital, Lilongwe, which is where i was headed to fly out to the.........

OLYMPICS! I had tickets to 4 matches of mens and 4 matches of womens hockey pool games, plus the gold medal match for the men. It was eipc! The park was amazing, and you had to have a ticket to get into the grounds, so it wasnt actually as crowded as Sydney was. The games themselves were great, although i watched the Aussie Men draw to GB. That was annoying. Good to see my mate play, even though it would have been better if they got to the final. The real winner was the BBC though, they had 24 DEDICATED channels running on free to air, so you could walk into basically any pub in london and say "the obscure sport that i love is on now, please show it" and they would, because with 24 channels running simultaniously, you pretty much have airtime to show everything! That was pretty amazing, and it meant you could watch entire water polo matches, not just cuts when the local team scored.

Hope alls well with everyone!!

Jake's new song

We bought a House,

So we haven't had 10 kids yet or even thought about having halfies but we have done something slightly adult and have given up on our travelling ways (for the time been). For the past few years Vicky and I have been saving and I have finally finished the final of so many exams so I am expecting a bit of a pay rise in the coming months. Come to Brisbane and stay in luxury at a hotel or you can crash on a couch or one of our many mattresses we have accrued over the years at Hotel De vic&haz:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-boondall-110026797

Vicky saving a bay turtle from some sea gulls on North Stradbroke Island

Vicky Fishing for a big one, it got away

My baby.

I just think this guy is the coolest

Harry and Vicky

Big August Party

Happy Birthday The Rock. You share a birthday with Eric Bana, Scully from the X files and Mary Jo Fernandez. Also posted is a nice photo of John and Ashley before they attended the Iron Maiden concert in Perth last year. Happy Birthday The Rock!

Out of Melbourne

Ah, yes, the lovely Ukes - now playing in a venue near you (if you live in Darwin). Amanda, May and the full band are on the road playing at the Darwin festival this weekend. If you google "Darwin Festival" and click on the music icon, you'll see what distinguished company they are in. The Ukes (just May and Amanda) are the first act in the opening concert next Saturday where they'll be joined by legendary local, Ali Mills. They have a solo concert the following Monday with the full Ukes' band.
Others leaving (or having left) town include Annika who arrived in the Phillipines just before the rain started. She and the others in her group are supposed to be on a 10-day orientation program in Manilla but they're flooded in at the venue which, conveniently, is on a hill. She says it reminds her of being flooded in at Lismore.
Nick is off for three weeks shortly to the US with two days scheduled for Vegas. Dom also has overseas plans this year which feature Asia and a visit to Annika while she's away for the year.
Jules and I are off to Vietnam again in September for another bike trip and both Glenn and Adam will be part of the gang. You'll probably read about us in the papers.

Rugby Miracle

The hot breath from Melbourne turned into a raging flame blowing Grant into the gold medal in the Rugby tipping competition. Compliments from Magoo and Dizzle in Adelaide.

Roff Reunion

Hi all,

We are about to book flights to the family reunion and want to know dates/details etc - Stu are you the man with the plan?

Cheers!
Kate

Dom's Birthday July 28

Happy Birthday Dom! On this day in history (1586), the first potato arrived in England. There is an excellent recreation of this event in the Elizabethan Blackadder. Also on July 28 1977, Ian Botham made his test debut v. Australia (5 - 74 in the first innings).  You share a birthday with Rick Wright from Pink Floyd and Elizabeth Berkely. She was the star in that cult classic "Show Girls".  I cant find a picture of you, but a picture of Dolph Lungdren in Rocky IV is pretty close. Happy Birthday!

Roffs selected

On the eve of the Olympics, can I bring to your attention that Glenn and I have been selected in the University of New England cricket squad to contest the over 60s Australian championships in November this year.
The event will be contested in Adelaide and Ashley, along with providing accommodation for Glenn, myself and our entourages, has offered to host a coctail party for our group on our arrival.

It will be an honour for the squad to have Glenn and myself present but I think we both feel it's about time we gave something back to cricket.
It's likely to be extensively televised, but feel free to visit and enjoy the carnival. Go UNE.

Forgotten Birthdays

Happy Birthday Naomi for the 13th of July. You share a birthday with Lily and Julius Caesar. Happy Birthday Lizzy for the 21st of July. You share a Birthday with Robin Williams. Sorry about the tardiness, hope you guys had an awesome day.

Roff Rugby Tipping Update

It’s the Quarter Finals of the Super 14s this weekend so it’s probably time for an update on the family friendly tipping comp.

 

It’s been a tight race with R-Dizzle and Magoo (Ash) leading for a very good part of it. Early on, R-Dizzle made the comment that “tipping results are showing (as always suspected) that South Australia is the true home of rugby!” Had R-Dizzle spoken too soon?

Jump forward to May and Gandalf (Grant) started tipping “unreal”, to quote Dude Love (aka Damio). Gandalf was doing very well and asked of R-Dizzle “Can you feel my hot breath on your neck?”

It’s now the quarter finals and Gandalf is on top of the ladder, followed closely by R-Dizzle and Magoo.

Meanwhile, on the bottom of the ladder, King of the Cousins and Wil Minson (Nick) are battling it out for the wooden spoon. Honourable mentions go to Lily, Ski Bunny (Jenny) and Lainey who are not far behind the ladder leaders and have been consistent throughout the comp. Well done us ladies!

So, where is the true home of Rugby, Melbourne or South Australia? Stay tuned to find out.

Samuel's Christening

Heya!

We recently had a visit from Joe's family and in between trips to Margaret River and lunches at Little Creatures, Samuel had his baptism (we've been over this before, it's not a dress - it's a robe). He was on his best behaviour - which largely consisted of staring at the priest in his usual intimidating manner until the unnerved member of the clergy commented on how he was giving "...er...very good eye contact..."
Despite our concerns about his seriousness, Samuel has cracked some gorgeous grins recently and has proven that he might just be willing to put up with Joe and I as parents after all. I am attaching some pics... oh, and if you think that Junior looks a little bigger than the last time you saw him it's because he's trying to compete with Indy's boy - at 3 months old he is nearly 8kgs and is off-the-charts in height.

Speaking of tall lads in our family: Dom, we found a job for you. Little Creatures is looking for a PR/Marketing person in Melbourne, I know you haven't finished your degree just yet but I am sure they will overlook that if you wear the right shirt to the interview...

Love,
Kate

Lily's Birthday

Happy Birthday Lily! 9 years old today. The Photos are of a recent whitewater trip and Lily, Luke and Jenny at the Stampede. Lily shares a Birthday with Harrison Ford, Patrick Stewart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The Flaming Lips

As part of the Kongsberg International Jazz Festival that was on last weekend, we went and saw The Flaming Lips. They are amazing live! I must admit i know very little of their music, but the show was fantastic, they put on a real concert, not just playing their music! If you can, get to a gig!

Other things that are happening in my life: Im headed to Hamburg today to visit a mate from Geraldton who lives there now. Then next weekend i am off to the UK for the summer holidays and i have lots of tickets to the Olympics. I am seeing 7games of mens hockey and 4 games of womens. One of the mens matches is the Gold Medal match, so hopefully Aus makes it! We have another friend from Geraldton who is now in the team, so it will be good to see him play! Other than that, Liz comes over relatively soon, and we are going to take a trip around Norway before she ducks to some other scandanavian countries, and im looking forward to the visit!

Amandas Birthday

Happy birthday for July 5 Amanda. Sorry for being so late. I don't normally admit to lookalikes but Ive pasted an absolute dopleganger in Daryl Hannah. How Hilarious is "Splash" and "Roxanne", how great is "Bladerunner"? How awesome is Amanda? By the way you share a birthday with robust tennis ace Amiele Mauresmo

Alaine in Melbourne - Part 2

Very disappointed not to have seen Uncle Grant in Melbourne but he was at a photo shoot for Vogue (or his magazine?).

A couple of photos of Nick's support, taken after the game. Nick is muddy but I don't think I saw him make one tackle. He tells me he adbides by the Roff motto "No pain, no pain". Nick was named man of the match by Julia, Amanda, Dom and myself for his ability to draw in players and the quickly off load to set up glorious tries. He also converted like a champ.

If you look closely at Amanda's poncho, you will see Brownie and Girl Guides Badges for activities she never attempted. My favourtites are the ski boot, Redhead Brownie Camp (I attended it one year) and the footpath badge. A lady at the cafe stopped to tell Amanda how impressive it is that she wears her badges with pride. Amanda responded that she is pleased to be able to wear someone else's badges with pride.

A big thanks to Nick and Dom for their hospitality. Their house is amazing and I think we should all meet up there for a backyard party in summer. You can iron your clothes in the bathroom and Dom makes a mean triple deck toastie when you are feeling a bit rough.

Indy's baby, Jordan, is massive. My weak arms struggled under his 8.5kg (at 4 months).

I can't wait for my next Melbourne visit in August. I expect Melbourne Uni to be in the Finals and Jordan to be 12kg.

Alaine in Melbourne

I don't have the full details (probably fortunately) but Alaine has been spreading the love in Melbourne this weekend. I had some work on so didn't catch up but she stayed with Adam and Dom, had a night at the Tote with Amanda, breakfast with Julia and then joined Amanda, Dom and Julia to watch Nick's rugby game on Saturday.
Inspired by the crowd, Nick lifted for the occasion and kicked either two out of three or three out of four to lift Melbourne Uni into a rare win against a team they seldom beat.
The final act of family bonding was a visit to see Indi's baby on the way to the airport. I don't know where she gets the energy...

Annika in Timor

Here's an emial I got this morning (Sunday) from Prof Damien Kingsbury who is leading the Australian observer mission in Timor Leste to monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections. Annika is working for Damien and his partner, Rae.

"The photo is from Rae's i-phone, of Annika and I at work in the 'office', a couple of hours after her arrival.

After this, we went up the mountain to Dare, an Australian special forces war memorial from WWII, for lunch, where we met the charge d'affaires from the embassy and his extended family, whom Annika has been corresponding wth. The diplomats knew her from correspondence and she was well received. Then by the pool for a couple of hours, then to a book launch with the who's who of East Timor from Australia. From there to the 40th birthday of Xanana's political advisor, on the beach at the back of the airport. Annika swanned about as naturally as can be and made a couple of new friends - American, Australian and Timorese. 

We admired the bonfire and then came back to the hotel to allow her to get some much deserved and needed sleep.
The white slave traders will have to offer a lot to get her from us!"

So far, so good...

Adam in Sony ad

Here's Adam in a recent Sony ad. Megan's influence is obviously paying dividends. He's good, but he's not quitting his day job..

Lachlan Roff's first athletics carnival win

Lacho won the Under 7 70m by a Usain Bolt margin of 10m - all the while looking for and smiling at his parents on the side of the track. He then won his next two races - The 100m and the 150m. We are considering employing an AIS coach.

Kelly's Birthday

Happy Birthday Kelly! 25th of June (Today in Canada). You share a birthday with two Georges. George Orwell and George Michael. To celebrate, here is a picture of Andrea Pirlo and Wayne Rooney. Go Kelly!

Annika in Canberra

We've just dropped Annika at Melbourne airport to fly to Canberra for the week-long briefing she has to do before going to the Phillipines for the year. When she gets back, and before she heads north semi-permanently, she has a 12 hour break before heading to Timore Leste for a week there to help with the parliamentary elections.
Packing for Canberra was challenging: she needed a dress to wear to a coctail party where the diplomats from the various countries involved in the program would be attending. Blokes were told to wear a suit but the instructions for the women were a page long - dress must be below the knee and shoulders shouldn't be exposed, among other requirements.
Plan A is to wear a dress she got from Grandma (Eileen) Roff. It just fits but she's taken a "Plan B" dress in case she eats too much during the week and can't do the back zipper up.
As it turns out, either plan may not work becasue we just got a call from her saying Virgin had somehow lost her bag between Melbourne and Canberra - she may be going to the reception in jeans and a t-shirt.
In other Melbourne news, Nick's Melbourne Uni Rugby team got flogged on Saturday probably because they wouldn't give him a start after him missing training three weeks in a row. His 15 minutes were excellent, though, and actually included a tackle! Melbourne Uni's one try was generated by Nick getting the ball out of a ruck with a back-handed, flick pass. Bonnie and I, as spectators, were very impressed.
Amanda is in Newcastle to finish her Honours thesis and attend her aunty Jane's wedding.
My editing of 2Wheels is going well but is very time-consuming at the moment as we have to catch up by about five weeks. When this is achieved, it should be a bit easier. You can follow my adventures by reading the 2Wheels blog on www.twowheels.com.au

The picture is of Jules and Annika at the airport when we dropped her off earlier today.

Glenn's Birthday June 20

Happy Birthday Glenn. You share a birthday with Prince William.  On this day in 1989 - The New Kids on the Block released "Hangin' Tough", one of Biggles favourite bands. To celebrate Ive pasted Victor Trumper in full swing. Incredibly, Victor still runs around in the Young and the Restless (another Biggles fave). Happy Birthday!