Pat I'm not really sure what I'd suggest but I can tell you about my cameras

I have two Canons:

Canon Powershot S1 IS
This one I got for Christmas (2004). I think we got it on sale for around $350 plus I bought a 1GB card which was an extra $100. I wanted this camera for two things...it takes up to 1 hour of video with the 1GB card and it has a 10x zoom.

and

PowerShot SD 110 Elph
It's great! I got it on sale (last years model) at Sears for $129! I did buy a 128MB card for it.
Honestly it's got everything you'd want (or everything I wanted) and it's small enough to carry every where you go!

I did have an Olympus before both of these and I liked it, I just didn't like that it had hardly any features.


So there you go!
I don't think anyone can tell you what to get as there are quite a few good cameras out there. Go for one with the options you want and at the price you want.
Canons are just my camera of choice.