RP said:

…except Vibrato… all I do with that is slam the violin into my neck and my bow goes flying all over so you can't even tell what the heck I am doing…

YOU'RE FUN!! LOL!!! Sorry but i start laughing every time i read it…. ThaT is the sense of humor!!!

I dont know if it will be helpful for you, but it helped me to learn vibrato.. Slaming violin into your neck might be caused by squeezing violin's neck.

1) First of all, when you do vibrato try to touch your violin only with the left thumb but not with the palm near to 1st finger (i don't know how you guys name that place) So – 2 points of touch: fingertip that makes vibrato and the thumb.

2) Exercises for relax the grip :

1. SIREN: Put your 1st finger on G string in low Ist position (Ab = A flat) and slide it to the up on fingerboard then back again. You want to have an even sound without interruptions. Do that for every finger. (If you can make it sound like siren- success !!)

2. RUB VOILIN'S NECK: PLay [A B Csharp D E -> D Csharp B A] on A string and ALL the time you play it – rub gently violin's neck with the thumb.

3) Exercise for vibrato: HOLD THE BUG: Imagine a little cute bug on your table. Put your 1st finger on that bug (you don't want to kill it, just hold) and do slight movements in random directions (don't forget that when you do that movements on violin the direction is strictly parallel to the string!!). Try not move your fingertip on the table (or ELSE you will kill the bug =)). Your hand is totally relaxed… Do that for every left-hand finger.

Hope you have fun working on the triplets though

Yep!! Well it happened that way, that even i couldn't tell "What the heck i am doing" LOL!!! 

I've just copy-pasted my post. Hope you guys don't mind.