1) Procure babysitter for 24 hours. This is by far the hardest step. Luckily, it was a Christmas gift from Hubs' parents.
2) Find hotel within fifteen miles that is not gross, maybe even pleasantly posh, but won't break the bank. (Again, we are lucky since we are a Husband-travels-and-the-consolation-prize-is-buckets-of-hotel-points couple.)
3) Leave your house during the kids' afternoon nap. Or, while they are both crying and not sleeping for some ungodly reason.
4) Forget pack essentials for a 24 hour date like hairbrush, work out shorts, make up, and breastpump. Just run to the car as fast as you can and don't even tell anyone goodbye, kids, Grandma, etc.
5) Get to hotel, ponder where to have dinner, go check out pool and gym facilities, realize there is no make up, or gym shorts.
6) Go in shi shi mall to buy lip gloss and mascara and get distracted by other stores in mall. Because NO CHILD IS MAKING YOU LEAVE AND KEEPING YOU ON TASK. You can lolligag to your hearts' content! Finally realize the only place that is going to sell make up is Nieman Marcus and actually tell someone at the makeup counter with only a little embarrassment that this is replacement mascara and you don't want to spend $30 on it. She directs you to Clinique.
7) Back at hotel, start getting ready for dinner and call room service to bring up hair brush. They bring up this:
8) They obviously have not seen your amazing frizzy mess of death. Resort to twisty bun. Run like the wind to Tapeo. 
Eat.
Die of heavenly satisfaction.
Repeat nine times. (It was Tapas, afterall.)
9) Try for about forty five seconds to walk the 120 feet up Newbury Street to J.P Licks and decide that -6 degree temps don't so much make it too cold for eating ice cream, but rather too cold for walking to said ice cream shop.
10) Run while screaming from biting wind chill back to hotel.
11) In hotel room, contemplate the decor. What you want to change in your house. What is next on your list. Don't you love when you are relaxed enough to start discussing the merits of raising the drapery rods up to the molding above the family room window?
Oh my gosh, this is when you've arrived at relaxation. This is why normal four hour dates don't work. It takes six hours to really unwind, THEN you can actually start acting like you like each other and talking about things you enjoy.
12) Change into swim suits, head to the gym, since heaven knows when you'll get a chance to work out again. Suck up courage and hit the treadmill in nothing by swim suit bottoms. Luckily, it's mostly abandoned. Repeat over and over in your mind: marathon runners do this every day. (Try to forget that your butt does NOT look like you've run a marathon in the last decade.)
13) Back in room (which really really rocks America); shower. Talk about large windows and wonder if anyone can see in while you are naked. Wonder if you could see anyone else naked in their rooms. Look up and see naked man. Contemplate why most epople you wouldn't want to see naked. Most folks are pretty average. Contemplate if you are average naked.
14) Close some of the window shades.
15) Laughing, snuggling, surrounded by soft lighting, fluffy pillows, books you've been itching to read, realize that there is a reason your selectively childless friends from work seem so calm and have no under-eye-bags of death. They do stuff like this all the time.
2) Find hotel within fifteen miles that is not gross, maybe even pleasantly posh, but won't break the bank. (Again, we are lucky since we are a Husband-travels-and-the-consolation-prize-is-buckets-of-hotel-points couple.)
3) Leave your house during the kids' afternoon nap. Or, while they are both crying and not sleeping for some ungodly reason.
4) Forget pack essentials for a 24 hour date like hairbrush, work out shorts, make up, and breastpump. Just run to the car as fast as you can and don't even tell anyone goodbye, kids, Grandma, etc.
5) Get to hotel, ponder where to have dinner, go check out pool and gym facilities, realize there is no make up, or gym shorts.
6) Go in shi shi mall to buy lip gloss and mascara and get distracted by other stores in mall. Because NO CHILD IS MAKING YOU LEAVE AND KEEPING YOU ON TASK. You can lolligag to your hearts' content! Finally realize the only place that is going to sell make up is Nieman Marcus and actually tell someone at the makeup counter with only a little embarrassment that this is replacement mascara and you don't want to spend $30 on it. She directs you to Clinique.
7) Back at hotel, start getting ready for dinner and call room service to bring up hair brush. They bring up this:
8) They obviously have not seen your amazing frizzy mess of death. Resort to twisty bun. Run like the wind to Tapeo. Eat. Die of heavenly satisfaction.
Repeat nine times. (It was Tapas, afterall.)
9) Try for about forty five seconds to walk the 120 feet up Newbury Street to J.P Licks and decide that -6 degree temps don't so much make it too cold for eating ice cream, but rather too cold for walking to said ice cream shop.
10) Run while screaming from biting wind chill back to hotel.
11) In hotel room, contemplate the decor. What you want to change in your house. What is next on your list. Don't you love when you are relaxed enough to start discussing the merits of raising the drapery rods up to the molding above the family room window?
Oh my gosh, this is when you've arrived at relaxation. This is why normal four hour dates don't work. It takes six hours to really unwind, THEN you can actually start acting like you like each other and talking about things you enjoy.
12) Change into swim suits, head to the gym, since heaven knows when you'll get a chance to work out again. Suck up courage and hit the treadmill in nothing by swim suit bottoms. Luckily, it's mostly abandoned. Repeat over and over in your mind: marathon runners do this every day. (Try to forget that your butt does NOT look like you've run a marathon in the last decade.)
13) Back in room (which really really rocks America); shower. Talk about large windows and wonder if anyone can see in while you are naked. Wonder if you could see anyone else naked in their rooms. Look up and see naked man. Contemplate why most epople you wouldn't want to see naked. Most folks are pretty average. Contemplate if you are average naked.
14) Close some of the window shades.
15) Laughing, snuggling, surrounded by soft lighting, fluffy pillows, books you've been itching to read, realize that there is a reason your selectively childless friends from work seem so calm and have no under-eye-bags of death. They do stuff like this all the time.
Speaking of Christmas books, 
