New Camera!

I just bought my first "real" camera. It is a Nikon D5000. For the last 3 years I really wanted a good camera. It seems a little odd since so many of the phones nowadays have great camera's. I have had the iPhone 3GS for many years now and will most likely get a new phone in Oct/Nov of this year. And maybe if I had the iPhone 4 I would be less interested in buying a quality camera. After all, the 3GS only has a 3.2 megapixel camera and no flash. I don't really care too much about the megapixels to be honest. The 3.2 works pretty well and I think most of my shots are good enough. However, the lack of flash has bugged me many times and I know the iPhone 4 has a flash. I'm assuming the iPhone 5 or my next phone will have flash and like 8 megapixels. But still, I want more. I want a telephoto lens and I want really good photos! With my vacation to Lake Tahoe coming up, I figured now was the perfect time to actually purchase the camera. So I did! And I love it so far! I have the standard lens that came with it and some other non-VR 55mm - 300mm lens. It isn't handy at the moment so I won't give you the details, but I'm not sure if the non-VR was the right way to go. I'm just starting into all of this and the Best Buy salesman said that with a 55mm - 200mm, I shouldn't have to worry about the VR. Since I've purchased it though I've read some articles that have suggested that one should always go with the VR. Oh well.. I guess I will see how it goes. I'm pretty excited at this point and need to fit some training time into my schedule for the camera.