5-18-14 and 5-15-15

We love coming to Stoughton and we were glad we could come to one of their biggest festivals of the year.  Syttende Mai is a celebration of Norway’s Independence Day, this year is their Bicentennial!  Norway became independent of Denmark on May 17, 1814.

We arrived downtown to a festive city,  Norwegian flags and people wearing native clothing everywhere.  We even see a street sign put up just during the festival.

 We visited the craft fair first and saw so many wonderful items for sale!  My favorite was GiftWorksPlus, specializing in picture frames, and they can make custom! We plan on getting some!

After visiting the craft show we headed back downtown to visit the store, Nordic Nook. I got a Syttende Mai T-shirt there.

We got settled in for the big parade at 1:30. What a great parade! So many interesting floats!

The King and Queen of 2014, also the Prince and Princess.

Even a float from Jefferson for their Gemeutlichkeit Days festival.

You’ll never guess who was in the parade, Vi Bergum 🙂 We have seen her at so many of the festivals we attend. She is in her 80’s and so full of vim and vigor.

What a wonderful parade, we had a great time helping Stoughton celebrate their homeland’s independence.

=================================================================================================

We came back in 2015, this time on a Saturday and saw other events. On Saturday is the youth parade, a bit shorter than the main parade on Sunday. Still fun though, as you can see by all the smiles.

The Prince and Princess of 2015.

The kids at Pumpkin Patch Preschool were so cute!

After the parade we enjoyed a performance by the Norwegian Dancers from Stoughton High School. Very skilled in the traditional dances, they are preparing to compete in Norway next year! Lets watch them perform one of the crowd’s favorite dances.  Uff da!

Olé and Lena hope you come back next year!