Thanks for the advice everyone! I ended up pulling the trigger on the Canon T1i (which I hadn't even considered, quite frankly, because I thought it was out of budget). Amazon was running a deal today, so I picked up the body, the 18-55 kit lens, plus the 55-250 IS lens for $800 total, which seemed like a pretty good deal!

Now to buy accessories...bag, UV filter, LCD screen protector - anything else? Any recommendations on any of these would be greatly appreciated!