just a quick update.. oh, and i wanted to thank all ya'll for the links and advice. it all came in very handy.
after hours of careful consideration, i went ahead and ordered the Canon A95 dig camera last night. it has 5MP, with 3x optical/4x digital zoom. with shannon going to do lots of cropping and enlarging pics to scrapbook, i figured picture clarity would be more important than zoom ability. i had to bump my "want to spend" figure a little bit. i was able to find the camera online for $290 bucks, so thats not bad considering i have seen it priced over $450 at local retailers.
once again, thanks for all the help. i will post some pics from the camera after christmas. i hope she likes it!!!
bigjohn
