The honored guest was en route to the Denver County Jail, but the celebration went on at Racines restaurant Monday morning for Lisl Auman's family and friends.

Less than an hour earlier, a judge had finalized a plea agreement that will release Auman from jail and send her to a halfway house once a bed opens up.

Auman had, until recently, been serving a prison sentence of life without parole.

"Without all of you, we wouldn't be sitting here together," Auman's mother, Colleen Auerbach, said as she stood before a crowd of about 20. "There were times when it just seemed totally impossible."

Since Auman's 1998 conviction for felony murder, her friends and family have been focused on a strategy to free her. On Monday, they talked about her newfound second chance.

"We've talked about all the things we'd do when she got out," said family friend Schez Downey, 53, who frequently visited Auman in prison and paid $3,000 for a college correspondence course she took.

Downey says she fantasized with Auman, 29, about visiting Disney World and taking a cruise.

That may have to wait. The Community Corrections program would allow out-of-state trips only for special circumstances such as a funeral, said Rick Berry, the halfway house director of operations for Colorado.

Longtime Auman friend Carrie Thorne, 30, had an unusual gift for Auman: Her baby girl, due Nov. 7, likely will be named Olivia Frances Lisl.

In jail on Sunday, Thorne said Auman felt her belly.

"We've got eight years to make up," she added.

While the Auman family hugged the public defenders outside the courtroom, a juror in Auman's trial said she was overjoyed by the resolution of the case.

Linda Chin had voted to convict Auman but later regretted her vote and supported the cause to free her.

"It's a happy day," Chin said outside court. "In comparison to life in prison without parole, we'll take it."

She said she did not know the penalty when she voted to convict, but added, "I voted to send her to prison, but I knew it was not the right vote, even then."

Auman will face many changes that have occurred since she was incarcerated.

She has never been on the Internet. And her mother noted that her wardrobe for the past eight years has been jailhouse tan or prison green.

The first activity Auerbach planned to do with her daughter was go shopping.

Auerbach said she spoke with Auman on the phone the night before the sentencing.

"She was really nervous, and she was very scared," Auerbach said.

Auerbach expected something different to be said in a call she hoped to have Monday night: "That it's over. That she won't be showing up in court ever again."