Bible study & bean soup saga

I have been a member of a women's Bible study through church for almost 3 years now.
It's been such a good way for me to meet new ladies & fellowship with them.
When I joined our Bible study, we were having anywhere from 4-8 ladies each week.
Over the last year, we've had nights with just 2 or 3 of us.
Over the last month we have been blessed to see as many as 12 ladies at our Monday night studies!
It truly is a blessing!

Now...on to the bean soup saga...
I have been in the mood for bean soup (random, I know).
While grocery shopping a few weeks ago I found a bag of 16 bean soup mix & then bought some little soup noodles to add to it.
Chris & I decided we wanted it for dinner on Monday night.
Monday morning I soaked the beans & then started cooking Monday at noon.
The beans & water took up maybe a 1/4 of my big soup pot to start with.
I cooked & cooked & cooked them until they finally seemed to get more tender.
I added the pasta about 5 as the beans seemed to be near reaching optimum tenderness.
By this point, my soup pot is about 1/2 full with beans, water & pasta.

What we ended up with was 1 nearly overflowing soup pot of bean soup with too tender pasta & not tender enough beans.
I was so frustrated with how what was supposed to be a simple meal had turned out to be so difficult.
I asked Chris twice if I was a bad cook...lucky for both of us he said no!
All we could do was laugh.
There's a ton of soup left to eat!
Luckily the entire meal cost less than $4 so I won't feel bad having to throw some out when we grow tired of eating it.

Who knew bean soup could be so challenging???