Deck Refinish Project

When I bought my house, it included one of those 10'x10' useless decks without stairs down to the back yard.  This really got on my nerves, so two years ago I decided (with some help from my wife) that I should build stairs.  So I poured a concrete pad at the base of the future-staircase, as well as a pad outside the man-door (which should have come with the house, but I digress...).  So I got to work modeling the stairs (nerdy, I know - but they needed to be right, dammit!).  After building them (the right way I might add), I went to ACE to get some stain so the wifey could get to work protecting my masterpiece of elevated wood planks...
  Stupid me, I trusted the woman that sold me the stain...or should I say PAINT!  I told her I didn't want PAINT and it will NOT have any latex in it whatsoever.  I wanted STAIN.  Well, low and behold the wifey got to work staining the next day and come to find out...it was PAINT!  Latex stain to be more specific - it's still paint to me!  Well, the stairs got done but we stopped at that thinking the paint wouldn't last a year and it would be easier to strip the paint.  No dice...after two years it was KINDA starting to look faded...really nice paint.  If y'all are looking for a paint that lasts, I can recommend a stupendous one for you...
   I finally accepted the dirty truth that I was going to have to un-do all the work I did...remove the spindles and steps, sand all the crap off, and stain it the way it should have been done in the first place.  Here's what it looked like at the beginning of the project:

See how some of the spindles are 'stained' and the rest are painted?  How embarrassing!  I'm sure the neighbors were like 'who's the white-trash mofo with the zebra-deck!?'.  Nobody ever asked me, but I had a great answer ready for them...

 Pretty fugly, huh?  Not me, the deck!
  What's more, this has been a really wet spring, so I've been trying to work between storm systems.  It's really difficult to plan work when the weatherman (or woman - trying to be P.C.) doesn't even know what's up!  Updated photos to follow soon...

Alrighty, then!  Check this out!

Mui  Bueno!  The wifey is happy about it, so that must mean I did it right...