No need to debate, just add a CANON 30D to your 'Wishlist' on your signature, and keep on posting. You can start with an XT or the 400D, and get outstanding performance.
Now seriously with the photos. Candid moments are pretty tough for C&C. The reason being, one photo is 100% better than no photo. If you had posted with the title "First Model Shoot" and explained you had hired a model, and set up this place by a pool, then I'd probably say you made a few poor desicions.
So it all really depends on how things happened. That is why the last photo, in a casual background with a good subject acting natural, things seem to flow perfectly. Same with the first one, the diagonals, give it a different sense of motion, another great candid picture.
If your friend was allowing you to take photos, and playing as your model, I would suggest you try to look for a background. Those black fences are nasty, but usually have plants and bushes on the other side, and with enough aperture they should become indistinguishable from the plants. The pool itself and its light blue can be a great background, if there is no glare and you can take the frame at an angle (say she is sitting, and you are standing about 2-3 yards from her, her back to the pool, right by the edge).
Something else to watch when taking portraits in such an illuminated area, is to protect your model's (friend's?) eyes. If it is too bright, they will squint, and look like squirrels, or show unsightly wrinkles, or both.
Those would be my only suggestions.
Cheers,
. I didnt set up any kind of shoot or anything. I had just recently gotten my camera and decided to mess around while sitting around. She was just being goofy and i was messing around in the preset mod and also the fully manual mode. They were basically just bored little snap shots that i thought turned out fairly decent. 
