lindsayend1022.jpgA victorious Lindsay Lohan leaving the Beverly Hills courthouse this morning

Lindsay Lohan appeared in court this morning with her lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley and her parents, and it appears as though spending the last month in rehab (not to mention a handwritten note and a lot of tears!) convinced Judge Elden Fox that the Betty Ford Center is the right place for the 24-year-old actress.

Lindsay's family and legal team were thrilled with Judge Fox's decision to let her return to rehab, and seeing as the DA was pushing for 6 months in jail, it seems like this was truly Lindsay's lucky day. Judge Fox told Lindsay he expected her to stay clean and sober, and he added, "You are an addict, you have to change your life and then the future is yours."

The troubled starlet arrived at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California around 1pm this afternoon, and she will stay there until January 3, 2011, at which point she will be released and put back on probation. Lindsay's next court date is February 25, so she's going to have a few months to get her life back on track (and without distractions like cocaine, Twitter, shopping and scandalous photo shoots!).

Obviously we're going to miss Lindsay for the next two-and-a-half months, but if rehab is what's going to get her back to the vivacious redhead we fell in love with in Mean Girls, then we're all for it. But will 3 months of counseling and sober activities really change her wild ways? This is her fifth stay in rehab, and though it's her longest one, do people ever really change? And even if she does emerge from Betty Ford as a changed woman, who's going to insure her movies? Only time will tell...