Oh I remember well! Yep, we had those kind of setbacks too but alloted enough time (you can see how long it took!) so that we could do some each day without getting too ticked off at setbacks. We even took a vacation in there at the end and when we came back we were refreshed and ready to go at it full force again.

If the pool is going to be in that location forever, then I think Dennis mentioned the tar option for backfilling protection. Who is going to see it if it never gets pulled out except to put a new one in many years down the road? The other option is to dig out further and build a retaining wall which a lot of people do.

BTW, I use Photobucket too. Easy to use, free.