america's got talent!

Did anyone follow this show throughout the summer? The ladybugs and I did - very enthusiastically. So when I found out after the season ended that the top 10 were going on an "AGT Live Tour", I was all-in ... I wish I had video footage of the moment I told them about our tickets, the littlest ladybug in particular just about had a seizure - the screams of delight were deafening - in that moment, I was the best mom ever. Hey, I take it where I can!

Well, after 2 months of waiting, the show finally arrived in Boston last night for its one and only night here ... big deviation from our usual school night routine! We arrived around 6:20 for what I thought was a 7:00 show ... turned out to be 7:30, so we waited in a line for quite a while and chatted with the other fans in the lobby of Boston's beautiful Wang Theater.

We finally got to our seats around 7:00 and the show finally started around 7:40 ... yikes, bedtime for my 9 year old ladybug is usually 8:00!

The show opened with Christina and Ali, a singing sister act who were big audience favorites throughout the show - they have cystic fibrosis and lost a sister last year to the disease ... the little sister, Christina, is particularly amazing since she's only 13 (Ali is 20) ...

The next act was Anna and Patryk - amaaaaazing 12 year old ballroom dancers - man, can those kids ever dance, they were really something ...

Taylor Mathews followed them, I think - he's that really adorable 19 year old singer who was known for how humble and nervous he was throughout the summer show - he was really good ...

Next came the magic act, Michael Grasso ... he did 3 mini acts all in a row - the first was slight of hand stuff (we sat way to far away to see it), the next was a disappearing lady in a box trick ... first she disappeared, then she came back, but with another lady too. Pretty cool, but the last trick was really incredible - he locked a lady in a small clear raised box, stood next to it, then lifted a hand held curtain in front of them and in the very next instant they had switched places - that was crazy - like Krazy crazy ...

Prince Poppycock was a big fan favorite throughout the show, so of course he did a larger-than-life flamboyant over-the-top act for us (to huge audience applause) ...

And as if that didn't get the audience going enough, next came this pint sized superstar ...

10 year old opera singer Jackie Evancho was absolutely incredible ... what a voice! They may have overplayed the fact that she's just a kid a bit too much (she stood on a box in front of the mic, she wore a fluffy white dress, she skipped as she left the stage, etc) - but there's no denying she has an amazing gift with that voice of hers ...

The bright stage lights swallowed her up in this iphone video clip of mine, but the audio is in tact - isn't she incredible? And the producers know it for sure - she sang at several different points throughout last night's show. I hope she's gonna take a long break out of the spotlight once this tour is over, she's so young ... the mother lion in me wants to make sure she doesn't end up the next Lindsay Lohan :-(

After Jackie came the big act for us - our absolute runaway favorite throughout the show last summer (and our main reason for being there) - Fighting Gravity ... see for yourself if you haven't already:

They were absolutely incredible and had people clapping and shouting before it had even ended - including us. The bugs and I were really sad that they never came back for another act afterwards because they really stole the show. AMAZING. A couple of the singers came back afterwards, Anna & Patryk did a second (and even more incredible) dance act, the bike kid (Jeremy VanSchoonhoven) did a few cool tricks (but not many since he had broken his hand about 4 weeks ago) ...

And another great act that they waited far too long to bring out was Studio One, a group of amazing acrobatic street dancers ranging in age from 10 - 22 ...

They were also big crowd-pleasers, we loved them!! But it was about 9:40 by the time Studio One finished up and my thoughts turned to leaving - lord knows, we were already way past our bedtime! Unfortunately, that's when they brought out the big million dollar winner, Michael Grimm ... he's a very talented singer (sounds a lot like Joe Cocker), but man did they ever keep him onstage too long ... and of course the shameless promotion of his upcoming Vegas Act was starting to try my patience ... so by the time we were actually walking out of the theater (with over 3,000 other people) it was past 10:00 and even my enthusiastic curfew-breaking ladybugs were ready to call it quits. We got home just in time for an 11 pm bedtime ... they were hanging their head low at the breakfast table this morning for sure! Today's gonna be an awfully difficult day at school for them, but I think it was worth it ... it's ok to break the rules every now and again, isn't it?!