Dare I take the Plunge?

This title may cause you to think that I have a clogged toilet, but no. Not this time at least. I'm debating whether I am ready to convert from extract brewing to all-grain brewing. Through extract brewing, the home brewer takes advantage of someone else already converting the grains' starches to sugar and providing it for you in the nice, neat form of liquid or dry malt extract. The benefits? It's easier, requires less equipment, and it's a shorter brew day. So why go all-grain? Well, starting from scratch in any form of cooking or baking has its universal benefits that most people know. The most obvious is the freshness of the ingredients, as well as the complete control the brewer has over the process. Since I get to do the converting of sugars (mashing), I get to decide exactly what goes into that process, how long to mash, at what temperature to mash, etc. By steeping all the grains at 152 degress instead of 158 degrees results in a completely different beer. It's that sensitive. And, thus, the process is just that interesting. The other benefits: many people say that the resulting beer tastes better, as extract brewing often lends an "extract twang," although mine obviously does not; the process is much cheaper, often costing nearly half the cost of extract brewing; and the process just seems more fun. So why haven't I done this before? Well, I could give you many excuses, like I haven't had the time, I haven't had the equipment, or I haven't researched the process enough. But, these would all be false. I just had 8 weeks of vacation to do this, I have all the needed equipment, and I've researched it quite a bit. The only valid excuse lately is that my "mash tun" had a leak, but that was just rectified today with some silicon sealer. So, I think I'm ready. My recent inspiration was Colleen's wish to brew a "banana bread" beer, using real bananas. I first assumed we could just throw the bananas in the fermenter, therefore not needing to mash anything. However, we found out that bananas are apparently very starchy, thus needing to be mashed. I have done a few "partial" mashes, during which I mashed some of the grains, and in this case pumpkin, but used malt extract for most of the sugars. The picture here shows all the grains and pumpkin in the mash tun soaking. So, all I really need to do now is do this same process with all the grains. I think the banana beer may just been the motivation I need. Who knows how it'll turn out. I mean, what could go wrong? By the way, this is what we need the bananas to do before we use them (it's much like baking).
I'll make sure to track our progress here, showing you the recipe, the process, and the outcome.