Week 8 : Grab A Mouthful : : : australia.beimers.com : : :

that's
me!bourne


week 8... wouldn't it be nice?

		Royal Exhibition Centre

Did you know that if you plugged your nose, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between rolling chocolate around in your mouth and rolling a lump of lard around in your mouth? It's true! Try it!

just what the world needs... ...Another Beimers! Meet Tahlia Beimers, the newest Beimers to join the human race. At six weeks old, she's a very special child, because unlike the rest of the world's Beimerses, she's quiet, well-behaved and very, very cute.

"Wait a second," you say, "I didn't know you had rellies in Australia." Well, neither did we! While talking on the phone to my dad (we do regress to backwards technology now and then), he mentioned that there was a renegade clan of underground Beimers living somewhere near Melbourne. I looked in the phone book and BAM! There they were!

I called them up and basically said, "Hi, I'm a Beimers too, can I come over?" (Wouldn't you say yes to that?)

Two train transfers, a bowl of soup, and ten Beimers later, we were having a blast at Truus Beimers' place (Tahlia's Great Oma). Here's who we met:

Truus Beimers Emigrated 1950	Roger Beimers Truus' Son	Sandra Beimers Roger's Wife	Jaclyn Beimers Roger's Daughter
Marinus Beimers Truus' Son	Elijah Beimers Marinus' Son	Natasha Beimers Elijah's Wife	Anthony Beimers Truus' Son

(We also met Kathy, Anthony's wife, but didn't get a photo. Sorry!)

Now, we may all be Beimers, but who is our nearest common ancestor? Truus had a copy of the Beimers family tree handy (a number of years ago, a gentleman named Chuck Beimers visited most of the world's Beimers to put the tree together... but he's a whole other story on his own). We found that we don't join up until way back in the 1700s! We're practically strangers! That's like Don Johnson calling up Magic Johnson! And Dean Johnson!

Gerrijt 1755-1818 \|

Gerrjt 1785-1847 \|	Paulus 1789-1858 \|
Folkert 1817-1870 \|	Gerrit 1818-1877 \|
Jacob 1847-1920 \|	Paulus 1843-1912 \|
Gerrit 1885-1925 \|	Bauke 1875-1958 \|
Johannes (married Truus) 1922-1998 \|	Pieter 1915-1988 \|
Marinus 1955- \|	Foppe 1945- \|
Elijah 1981- \|	Kevin 1976-
Tahlia Apr 3, 2002

My great great great great grandfather's great great great great great granddaughter is Tahlia, so that would make her my... um... hang on a minute... fifteenth cousin? Or maybe she's my seventh niece eight times removed?

We asked the viewing public, and found out the answer: 6th cousin, once removed. And, as an supplemental to the contest submission, we were told we were slipping in our contests, and that this one was way too easy.

Well, kiss my hairy butt then!
No prizes for you lot! Just wait to see what we've got in store for the week 11 contest. Then you'll be sorry!

not again...

Who knows? Today's Weather:

Just another manic Monday here at the Beimers-Lingman household. The usual: Get the laptop back, find out it still doesn't work, send it back. You know that story. With all our frantic phone calls, the IBM tech wizards are beginning to think we're Thinkpad hypochondriacs. Well, guess what? WE'RE NOT HYPOCHONDRIACS IF THE DAMN THING'S STILL SICK!

"Does free range chicken taste that different from box chicken?
Y'know, chicken raised in a box."

- Aimee.

shaggy!

$18

Bep Soup & Koek Today's Weather:

For the past week Kev's been cringing whenever he's seen his ugly mug in photos. He finally decided to do something about it today and planned to go in for a tiny trim. The hairdresser had other plans for him and he came out with a hairdo worthy of private school. Click on his messy hair to see his new do! It looked great the first day. The next morning, we made a startling discovery... Kev's got bangs! Hahahahahaha. We now know that hairdressers here make the hair flow forward, as opposed to flowing backwards, which is what Kev's hair has been doing for the past 25 years. It's hard to be a world traveler when you've got bangs, but we'll see how he goes.

"Why pay for it when you can get it for free?
Yup, he's a Beimers alright!"

- Marinus Beimers.

stir crazy

Jungle

Cuba

Thump... Thump.... Thump... (That's the sound of us lying on our backs throwing gummy coke bottles at the ceiling and then trying to catch them in our mouths. We obviously don't deal well without a computer.)

"We'd make great cellmates."

- Aimee.

simon sez

$89

$48

This man knows his backin' 'n packin'. We couldn't stump Simon with a single camping supply question, and he was nice to us as an Australian bartender. So whatever Simon says we need, that's what we're going to buy!

"It all started with that mail-order filet mignon."

- Aimee.

hey colin!

$35

$50

Colin, if anything will get you to visit us in Australia, these will. 80's style Converse Sneaks, any colour you want, and only a fraction of the price of those paint speckled Donna Karan Special Editions we found for you in New York. In the catalogue, they recommend wearing them with a patch-ridden denim jacket, ripped jeans and a mullet! Book your flight today!

Kevin: "Life's too short to eat at your speed."

Aimee: "Good thing women live longer."

oompa-loompa

It's time for the Melbourne Chocolate Festival! We went into the city, nearly skipping with glee at the chocolate we were going to see. Nothing would get in our way... except finding our way into the Royal Exhibition Building, which took nearly a half-hour.
In our attempts to find the opening of a structure that looked as though it had been sealed shut in the 1800s, we asked some passersby if they knew how to get in. We smartly asked the ones carrying chocolate-looking bags. They told us how to get in, but they also told us it sucked and there were no samples. One lady had even given up breakfast hoping to fill up on free chunks. They left in a bit of a rage, and we were left with the decision: Spend our $14 on admission with the slim chance of free chocolate, or just go spend the $14 at 7-11 on guaranteed chocolate? You know us, the gambling types...
Kevin has a theory: go into something with low expectations and you'll be pleasantly surprised. A somewhat pessimistic viewpoint, but it worked today! Maybe those ladies just weren't pushy enough, but we got plenty of samples, saw a demonstration of chocolate making, got our photos taken with Freddo Frog and Caramello Koala, and spent the entire day in chocolate bliss.

Sure, it wasn't the world class affair that you'd expect from a world class city (it was more like a school science fair exhibit, but with chocolate samples), but we had a good laugh at the chocolate fashion show (in which no one was really wearing chocolate) and the children's cooking demonstration (where the children weren't really allowed to cook because the lady was too bossy). We had a nice chat with the head of Melbourne Chocolate Walking Tours, and saw the first half hour of the movie Chocolat, and ate plenty of free chocolate. Hey, that last item alone is enough to make anyone's day great!

"...Although there is a great deal of humour in asking
Michael Kellman to go buy a sword."

- Aimee.

oz loves mel!

$8.20

It's small enough that you can get everywhere by walking, yet you'll turn a corner and find yourself in the shadow of a huge museum complex, scattered with historic and modern buildings. You feel safe alternatively because of the crowds of people and because you know you're in a generally safe country. Melbourne is the artists capital, the food capital and the city of choice for Australians, not tourists. If you ever find yourself lucky enough to be in Australia, don't just stay in Sydney. Make the trip down to Melbourne and you'll be pleasantly surprised...

"Hey! Dick Smith is more than just a dick."

- Aimee.

ta: (exp.) To a North American baby, it means "gimme". To a rich, spoiled socialite with a Yorkie, it means "goodbye, darling!" But to Aussies? "Thank you!"
"That'll be $18.50." ... "Here's $20! Keep the change!" ... "Ta, mate!"

We've got mail...

You may have bangs....but it's better than the shag.
Bowl of soup......it looks just like Bep Soup! Was it Sunday and did you have it for lunch? With little meatballs in it? Amazing family resemblance.
- Mom, Thunder Bay ON

Hey Kev and Aim, Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, so with that in mind.... A friend of mine asked her to make a silly website, and it had to include chocolate pudding, oatmeal muffins, system of a down, and cats in heat. Pudding made me think of the big chocolate picture on your site, and well the rest is a spoof for fun. http://www.angelfire.com/on4/starkissed/
- Dan, Thunder Bay ON

Aimee and Kevin,
Congratulations! you have a baby! She looks so cute!!!

Take care, all beimers.
- Tom, New York NY

Drop us a note!

Check out our American roadtrip at roadtrip.beimers.com!