The Arch... retry

OK, so we dry stacked the arch.  Dry stacking means you use no mortar.  You just hope that all the brick does what it should... all stay & look wonderful.  Guess what?  It didn't.

We are artists in the best form.  Sometimes we throw caution to the wind and do things we think will work without looking things up or doing calculations.  Well, we had bricks sliding out and we had gaps after we pulled the arch form.  We put the arch form back in & took down ALL the bricks we had cut & put in.  It came out much quicker than it went together.

Now what?  Now we have the proper calculations for the angle on the brick (thanks to Mike & his math skills).  We are also going to mortar it all in... just in case ;)  So what does that mean?  That means that we will have to cut 160 new bricks for the arch.  We got half done yesterday.  I didn't realize how out of shape I was.  My stomach muscles are getting a great workout.  

It also means that my oldest daughter is playing mom while we get this accomplished.  She has been so great through all of this.  I'm hoping by Wednesday we'll be all done and I can take her to our favorite coffee place for the live paint event.  I think by then we'll both need a break.  

For those of you wondering why we don't have family coming over to help... we live 14 hours away from all of our families.  We moved out here almost 4 years ago for my husbands job.  It's times like these that I know how important family is, and how much every moment that we spend with them is appreciated!