Hi Cathy.

Some time ago (about April 2003) I've bought myself a 'Nikon CoolPix 2500' digital camera (it cost me about EUR 250,-).
It is a 2.1 megapixel camera (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have it at hand) but the major advantage is that you can turn the objective - this means you can hold the camera to have the best view to the display and turn the objective to catch your motive. The zoom is also brilliant, memory cards (with a 128 MB card you can take about 330 fotos with 1600 x 1200 dpi) are relatively cheap, it's fast in taking fotos - all in one a very handy camera.
I compared it to my friends 'Sony Cybershot' (the newest model, a 3 megapixel camera) and it didn't satisfy me; the zoom of the Nikon and the lifetime of the batteries are better. It's slightly faster in taking fotos and the best one - Nikon costs about half the price a Sony costs.

I hope I could help you a bit.
I've to mention that I don't get paid by Nikon ;)