Feel free to share this information with me…. =P
Just kidding, I figured it out too. You just do a regular “Save As”, (saving as an .ai file) and click OK, and then a SECOND menu (a menu I never pay attention to) comes up talking about preserving paths, being PDF compatible, saving outlines, etc. there is also a window at the very top that defaults to Version CS2, but u can switch the dropdown menu to choose a different version. Click Version 8 and save.
Then you can do a File> Open in Cinema 4D and open up that .ai file. Voila.
Wow…its rare that I end up answering my own post. =)