Hi Vicki,
Back in March when getting ready to go on my study abroad trip to central Europe, I purchased a SONY Cyber-Shot, 16.1 Mega Pixel camera. It is a really simple point and shoot camera, but has lots of settings and surprisingly very good quality photos. It has a built in image stabilizer so no tripod is necessary. It also adjust to light settings or you can simply turn off the flash if you don't want it. I'm sure there are nicer cameras out there, but this little one surprised me. It was a camera to stand in for my nice camera that I didn't want to carry around during travel. It is about the size of a credit card and about 5/8 of an inch thick. I carry it in my front pocket when going to the greenhouse or events where I don't want to risk messing up my really nice camera.
I got the black one, but it was also in silver and other colors. It cost me about 80 dollars. I also got a 32 gig memory card for it so that I rarely have to delete photos. It also takes good quality video.
cheers,
BD